In honor of 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, Freedom House has launched a new web feature highlighting the changes in freedom in the former communist world that followed the seminal event.
3. The American Solution
Many people are fond of saying “Creativity is thinking outside the box.” Reactively, this means that someone is trapped “inside the box” and needs to get out. Proactively, “Genera-tivity means thinking to avoid getting trapped inside the box.”
From a more operational perspective, generative thinking creates new responses. In learning theory terms, generativity creates responses that the stimulus conditions were not calculated to elicit. In other words, generativity elicits no responses that are conditioned, linear, or based upon the limitations of the Binary Code.
In the current global financial crisis, for example, the assumptions and implications are unclear. The finance people assume that they are dealing with 100% of the variance—Financial Capital.
The generative thinkers, in turn, define the New Capital Development ingredients as follows (see Figure 4):
- Marketplace Capital or Marketplace Positioning
- Organizational Capital or Organizational Alignment
- Human Capital or Human Processing
- Information Capital or Information Modeling
- Mechanical Capital or Mechanical Tooling
- Financial Capital or Financial Investments
These effective ingredients account for Economic Productivity Growth or EPG which is the major part of all Economic Growth.
In short, the financial people say, “It takes money to make money.”
The generative thinkers propose, “It takes ideas to generate wealth.”
The former extends The Industrial Age into overtime.
The latter introduces “The Age of Ideation.”
Figure 4. The Sources of Economic Productivity Growth (EPG)
As may be viewed, Financial Capital Investments account for 15% of the variance in Economic Productivity Growth or EPG. In turn, the remaining New Capital Development Systems account for 85% of EPG. Finally, Marketplace Capital accounts for the totality of EPG—100%.
What does this mean for resolving the Global Financial Crisis? It means that our limited perspective on Financial Capital is compounded by our Binary Code Thinking which allows us only “Go” or “No-Go” choices: Either we let the Free Market operate in an “unfettered fashion” or we regulate it in a “controlling fashion.”
Only when we view the crisis in the totality of its sources can we make a long-term resolution. Indeed, we can only affect a long-term economic growth resolution when we adopt “The Generativity Solution.”
Having prematurely chosen to drive our economy by Financial Services instead of Manufacturing, we erected Financial Information Systems with “Faux Interdependence.” Lacking a “Common DNA/RNA-like Interdependent Data Base,” these Financial Services operated independently and excluded human processing. The net of their data-centric operations assumed themselves to be “Sources of Wealth” rather than “Products of Wealth” or “Measurements of Wealth.”
In perspective the solution to our economic crisis is the solution to all human crises: a “Common Integrated and Interdependent Data Base” which demands “Human-Centric Interdependent Organizational Processing Systems.” This is “The Generativity Solution.” This is “The New Capitalism.”
4. Relating to Images
The principles of generativity are simple, yet profound:
- Relate to images of phenomena;
- Represent images of phenomena;
- Reason with images of phenomena.
These are the effective ingredients of thinking generatively.
In reverse order, we cannot think generatively before we have represented the phenomena ideationally. Similarly, we cannot represent ideationally before we have related to images interpersonally.
The probabilities scientists have given us normal curves: nice, linear, idealized symmetrical distributions around central tendencies such as means or averages. The curves tell us something about where people and products stand in relation to this central tendency. The work of the 20th century has been based upon these probabilistic assumptions. The mission of the 20th century has been to move toward reducing our deviation from this idealized central tendency: in other words, to look more and more like the middle of the curve.
Figure 5. The Normal Curve
The normal curves also attempt to tell us how people and products move through the phases of the curve. For example, the normal curve has been adopted by the marketplace to reflect the movement of products and people through market phases: opinion leaders, early adopters, middle adopters, late adopters, laggards or non-adopters (see Figure 6). While this approach has produced an extraordinary array of products and services, it has simultaneously generated apparently finite images of people who look and act and think alike.
Figure 6. The Market Curve
5. Representing Images
In fact, the market curve is not a normal curve. Indeed, nothing in God’s universes is linear, normal and symmetrical. To be sure, the so-called market curve is comprised of multiple market curves: each, in turn, is multidimensional, interdependent and curvilinear as well as asym-metrical and changeable (see Figure 7). We may view a phenomenal representation of these multi-modal market curves in the illustrations below:
- Generating or stimulating markets;
- Innovating or initiating markets;
- Commercializing or making markets;
- Commoditizing or draining markets;
- Attenuating or breaking markets.
For our purposes, we label the acronym for these market phases GICCA. They have profound implications for their corporate cultures and their people and products.
Figure 7. Multi-Modal
Indeed, elevated requirements have been determined for the processing systems generated by the multi-modal curves (see Figure 16). As may be viewed, the requirements for corporate-community processing capacities align directly with the GICCA phases:
| Phases | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Generating—S–MP–R | Marketplace Positioning * MCD |
| Innovating—S–OP–R | Organizational Alignment * HCD |
| Commercializing—S–P–R | Human Processing * HCD |
| Commoditizing—S–O–R | Information Modeling * ICD |
| Attenuating—S–R | Mechanical Tooling * mCD |
In other words, at the highest levels, the multi-model processing systems require advanced generative processing systems: S–P–R, S–OP–R, S–MP–R. We are not free to generate if we are not empowered to think!
Figure 8. Multi-Modal Processing Requirements
6. Exploring Images
The first phase of reasoning is exploring images. This means exploring or expanding alternative views of our images. For example, when we explore our image of The American Enterprise System, we discover that American corporations have settled into Innovator–Commercializer positioning (see Figure 9). This is often referred to as “The Japanese Model:” slightly innovative commercialization. It has been adopted by many American corporations such as “Microsoft.”
Figure 9. Innovative–Commercializer Positioning
The advantage of this position is that it usually settles in running in the “draft” of the market leaders and, thus, minimizes the expenditures of leadership. Unfortunately, since America dropped out of Research and Development leadership, there is no nation for America to follow.
Nevertheless, American companies must once again consider its historical 20th century positioning of Generative – Innovative leadership (see Figure 10). Of course, this requires an upgrading of E & T as well as R & D: Education and Training as well as Research and Development.
Figure 10. Generative–Innovative Positioning
Forrest Gump – Need a thesis relating to freedom and democracy?
JB asked:
I need to develop an outline too, so any ideas for body paragraphs relating to or supporting your thesis ideas would be greatly appreciated!
1984 by George Orwell’s statement?
jmnta1990 asked:
In what ways could the following be true?
“Ignorance is strength”
“War is peace”
“Freedom is slavery”
Can I have an example of each? please.
How do you spread freedom and democracy without being in contradiction with the terms?
Jose R asked:
If we define freedom as the condition of acting without compulsion, wouldn’t the only way to spread it be convincing people?
and if we define democracy as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections wouldn’t them have to vote for our army to go and invade their coutry or wouldn’t them have to grab the power of their country for themself?
timm1776- I hope you realize that you are contradicting yourself or maybe not contradicting but saying that the end justify the means. As long the end result is freedom and democracy we can spread it in anyway.
What’s the difference between democracy and freedom?
oryboy37 asked:
I was sitting in my economics class and began to ask myself this question. Like what are some examples of the way they are different?
If America supports freedom and democracy, why have we done the following?
Anime Fan asked:
… overthrown democratically-elected governments and installed dictators in their place (example: the Shaw of Iran and Saddam Hussein), supplied these dictators with weapons of mass destruction (again, we gave Saddam the gas he used again the Iranians and the Kurds), trained death squad commandos at the “School of the Americas” and sent them back to Latin American countries to kill and torture innocent civilians, including priests and nuns? Are these the marks of a country that loves freedom and democracy???
Another fine example of Bush supporting freedom and democracy?
crabby_blindguy asked:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_politics
Bush’s “fine ally”–the dictator of Pakistan, who staged a coup to seize power–just deported the former Prime Minister–who was elected by the people of Pakistan.
This “ally” of bush’s is the same one who, last year, sighned an agreement with al-Qaida granting them sanctuary in Pakistan.
This dictator–Bush’s ally whom he continues to support and defend, has thus done exactly what the Taliban did–give sanctuary to America’s proven enemies.
Yessiree, Bush is such a great supporter of freedom and democracy. Doesn’t it just boggle your mind?
Do you think that people have the right to the freedom of thought without influence anymore?
inj3000 asked:
In my British Literature class, we are reading a book called 1984 by George Orwell and we have to do a research paper on it. My research topic is thought and if/how it is influenced. and how do we know what we want why we do what we do. If you have any ideas or comments please let me know!
1984 by George Orwell?
Mary asked:
What does Orwell mean by “War is Peace” and “Ignorance is Strength” ?
How do the slogans “War is Peace”, “Ignorance is Strength” and “Freedom is Slavery” illustrate the theme of the book and Orwell’s basic political philosophy? Why?
Propaganda in 1984 by George Orwell?
deadlyxxdangerous asked:
I had an assignment to write an essay of two examples of propaganda in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Do you think this is good?
THIS WOULD MEAN SOOO MUCH TO ME IF YOU HELPED ME. 
Propaganda in 1984 by George Orwell
In Oceania, rumors, myths, ideas and false information controls the minds of the citizens. The Party uses propaganda as a powerful weapon against the citizens. There are many types of propaganda used.
One use of propaganda used by the Party is doublethink. “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” (the Party’s slogans) are all part of doublethink. In this example, the Party is trying to convince the citizens of Oceania that what they want, is what they already have. They do not want freedom, because it is slavery. If they were free, they would be unhappy and would not live the way they do. They are made to believe that war makes peace and serenity. And that not knowing and being unaware of what is going on, is strength. The Party uses these slogans to control the minds of the citizens to believe that anything other than their INGSOC government would not make them happy. This way, the citizens will not consider rebellion because they believe that the Party’s way of government, is the only good way of government.
“Big Brother is Watching You.” This slogan of the Party is used in the media also. This example of doublethink is depicted beneath the picture of Big Brother on posters that are hung about Oceania. This slogan is meant to give citizens a feeling of protection. A feeling of safety. The Party uses this to make them think that within this government, nothing can go wrong. And that if there was no Big Brother, they would not be living like this. This, in fact, is true. But the citizens are brought up believing that without Big Brother, life would not be safe. Everyone within Oceania would be in danger, all the time. Big Brother represents the Party, and INGSOC. “Big Brother is Watching You” makes the citizens feel that the Party will always protect them and make them happy.
Propaganda is brainwash. The citizens of Oceania are brainwashed to think that the Party is really there to help them, to make them happy. “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” and “Big Brother is Watching You” are examples of doublethink. These uses of propaganda prevent rebellion of the citizens of Oceania because they believe that this society is the ideal society. They believe they are protected, and that they could not be happier. Propaganda is the Party’s deadliest weapon of control.
if democracy and freedom got in the way of making money in the USA would they be eradicated?
Mary asked:
if democracy and freedom got in the way of making money in the USA would they be eradicated. America is a capitalist system and democrary and fredom ares it political and moral aspects but if democrary and freedom got in the way of people making money would americans erddicate them.
Kudos to Harry Reid for Including Public Option in Proposed Health Care Bill
Yesterday's announcement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will include a government-run insurance plan (a public-option) in the health care bill that will now be debated in the Senate is excellent news.
Contrary to naysayers' arguments, including a public option does nothing to limit the ability of private insurers to compete - unless by "competition" one means the ability to impose unfair conditions on customers because they have nowhere else to turn under the current oligarchy.
The bottom-line is that a government-run public option would keep the private insurers honest, resulting in better, less expensive coverage for all.
Now the Democrats need to put aside their differences to get behind and pass a plan with the public option. One interesting aspect of Reid's proposal would allow individual states to "opt-out," & refuse to participate in the public option - a perfectly reasonable provision that respects America's federalist structure. This could lead to a very interesting side-show in the states - how many citizens would vote with their feet and leave states that opted out??
Sure, it would be nice if a Republican or two (or even more) would take off their partisan blinders for a moment and consider what Americans truly want and need instead of playing the same old politics, but given the experience of the recent past we won't hold our breath - so now it's up to the Senate Democrats to do the right thing and pass this bill.
Free Radicals – Individual Efforts Can Change the World
The premise of my forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press, Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America,* is that the efforts (mostly unwelcomed, at the time) of certain individuals throughout the nation's history have played huge roles in first identifying, then guaranteeing the freedoms we enjoy today. In this book I focus on the lives of five so-called "free radicals": Roger Williams, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W.E.B. Du Bois and Vine Deloria.
Yesterday's column by Bob Herbert in the NY Times, "Changing the World," speaks to the mind-set of these sorts of people:
"The tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.
"This is so wrong. It is the kind of thinking that would have stopped the civil rights movement in its tracks, that would have kept women in the kitchen or the steno pool, that would have prevented labor unions from forcing open the doors that led to the creation of a vast middle class....
"Being an American has become a spectator sport. Most Americans watch the news the way you’d watch a ballgame, or a long-running television series, believing that they have no more control over important real-life events than a viewer would have over a coach’s strategy or a script for 'Law & Order.'
"With that kind of attitude, ... Rosa Parks would have gotten up and given her seat to a white person, and the Montgomery bus boycott would never have happened....
"The nation’s political leaders and their corporate puppet masters have fouled this nation up to a fare-thee-well. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference.
"It can start with just a few small steps. Mrs. Parks helped transform a nation by refusing to budge from her seat. Maybe you want to speak up publicly about an important issue, or host a house party, or perhaps arrange a meeting of soon-to-be dismissed employees, or parents at a troubled school.
"It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world."
Individuals like Williams, Paine, Cady Stanton, Du Bois and Deloria had plenty of reason to be discouraged - and they sometimes were, to the point of despondency. They bent, but they didn't break - and they ended up changing the world.
Who will be the free radicals remembered from our current era?
* Release date: summer/fall 2010
LAND: The week in review Jan.30- Feb.05Source: Liberty Action News DigestWe mourn the passing of two quite different activists this week ... Coretta Scott King [1927-2006] and Stew Albert [1939-2006]...free at last.In other news, NH residents reject the 'Lost Liberty Hotel', anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is arrested at Bush's State of the Union address ... for the terrible crime of wearing a
Just Do It – Obama Needs Backbone for Meaningful Healthcare Reform, a la FDR
In "Roosevelt, the Great Divider" in yesterday's New York Times, Jean Edward Smith explained that much of the meaningful progressive reform accomplished during the New Deal was done by a pugnacious president willing to exercise his majority in Congress even though he knew he would be highly criticized by his opponents.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said on national radio before the 1936 election, Smith recalls. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
When he was seeking to make major progressive reform, FDR did not waste his time trying to work with the deeply entrenched obstructionist minorities interested only in maintaining an unjust status quo. He did not consult giant utilities, for example, when he sought to create the Tennessee Valley Authority which would provide affordable electricity throughout the poor South. He did not ask for the permission of Wall Street when he proposed the Securities and Exchange Commission to curb greed. Had he caved to the loud minority who believe that government has no role in providing a social safety net, we would have no Social Security. His arguments for maximum hours and minimum wage laws and the right to bargain collectively were over the heated objections of American business. And, to show that it was not always traditionally conservative vested interests that he faced down, organized labor was vociferous in its objection to the Civilian Conservation Corps because of the low wages paid by the corps.
In short, Smith explains, "majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission." He assuaged his Democratic colleagues to maintain his majorities, but "his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia.... [He] lambasted the 'economic royalists' who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having 'earned the hatred of entrenched greed.' In another speech he mocked 'the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs' who criticized the government’s relief efforts.... Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process."
By contrast, President Obama's "fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead." Smith suggests "[i]t is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices. Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land."
Really, what does Obama have to lose? Face it: the Right, marching to the tune of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Steele, is never going to play ball. Their main agenda is political - whatever it takes to bring Obama down, they're for. So Obama might as well stand up, like FDR, and say, "to heck with 'em - we're going to pass reform with teeth that will create the sort of humane society of which we are all worthy."
What does that mean? As David Brooks suggests in his column today, "Let's Get Fundamental": "There are many people telling [President Obama] to go incremental. They’re telling him to just enlarge the current system a bit and pay for it by pounding down a few Medicare fees. But did Barack Obama really get elected so he could pass the Status Quo Sanctification and Extension Act?
"This is not the time to get incremental. It’s the time to get fundamental. Reform the incentives. Make consumers accountable for spending. Make price information transparent. Reward health care, not health services. Do what you set out to do. Bring change."
Much of what has made America great was brought about by progressive legislation. If President Obama wants to be a great president who makes lasting, meaningful progressive change, he should stand up, be brave (in his own way, if not in the outright combative manner of FDR), and commit to a strong progressive plan. Accept that the ever-present regressive 40% of American society will bitch and moan about it (but of course they will take full advantage of its benefits once available) - they'll never change, so might as well just move forward despite them.
Nordyke v. King Rehearing
Last Thursday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-heard oral arguments in the case of Nordyke v. King (discussed here previously), regarding whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment to apply to the states.
As reported Friday on the Constitutional Accountability Center's "Text and History Blog,"
"Just a few hours after the 11-judge en banc panel heard argument, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski issued an order holding off on further consideration of the case until the Supreme Court disposes of three outstanding petitions for certiorari in similar cases –McDonald v. City of Chicago (No. 08-1521), in which CAC [and law professors Richard Aynes, Jack Balkin, Randy Barnett, Michael Curtis, Michael Lawrence, and Adam Winkler] filed an amicus brief urging Supreme Court review; National Rifle Ass’n v. City of Chicago (No. 08-1497), the companion case to McDonald, also out of the Seventh Circuit; and Maloney v. Rice, (No. 08-1592), the comparable New York “numchucks” case coming out of the Second Circuit. All three of these petitions present challenges to local laws restricting the sale or possession of arms, and are asking the Court to determine whether, and if so how, the individual right to bear arms is “incorporated” against state and local action.
"These three petitions are currently scheduled to be considered at the Supreme Court’s so-called “long conference” on September 29. The Court is expected to announce its decision on whether to hear the cases soon thereafter.
"The Ninth Circuit’s action suggests that the Supreme Court should not wait any longer for the Circuit courts to weigh in on the incorporation question. So far, both the Second and Seventh Courts have found no incorporation, citing binding Supreme Court precedent, thus there is technically no “split” on the matter. While the Court frequently waits until a pronounced split has developed among the federal circuit courts before granting review, here, the lower courts have indicated that they feel this is a matter for the High Court to decide."
