Monthly Archives: February 2021

When Did We Begin Worshiping War?

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Photo by Specna Arms on Unsplash

Like most of us, I grew up believing the United States was peace-loving and we were people who avoided war. After all, for a large part of our history, the military establishment and its emulation was kept very small. It was intentional. We didn’t want a large military that might become a threat to our government and institutions. Our founders were wise.

What changed us? What changed our view and our course?

Perhaps the only thing that has changed is our awareness. It seems what we teach in school leaves out some essential details, facts, and information. Let’s take a look at our record. Here is a list of the US military and surreptitious operations in foreign countries from 1798 to 2005.[1] World Wars I & II are omitted.

1798-1800                      France               Undeclared naval war against France, marines land in Puerto Plata

in what is now the Dominican Republic

1801-1805                      Tripoli               War with Tripoli (Libya), called “First Barbary War”

1806                             Spanish              Military force enters Spanish territory in headwaters of the Rio Grande

                                    Mexico             

1806-1810                      Spanish and        US naval vessels attack French and Spanish shipping in the Caribbean

                                    French in          

                                    Caribbean

1810                             Spanish West      Troops invade and seize Western Florida, a Spanish possession

                                    Florida

1812                             Spanish East       Troops seize Amelia Island and adjacent territories

                                    Florida

1812                             War of 1812       Naval and land operations, including the invasion of Canada

1813                             Marquesas          Forces seize the island of Nuku Hiva and establish first US naval base                                      Island                in the Pacific

1814                             Spanish East       Troops seize Pensacola in Spanish East Florida

                                    Florida

1814-1825                      Spanish in          US naval squadron engages French, British, and Spanish shipping in

                                    Caribbean          the Caribbean

1815                             Algiers and         US naval fleet under Captain Stephen Decatur wages “Second Barbary

                                    Tripoli               War” in North Africa

1816-1819                      Spanish East       Troops attack and seize Nicholls’ Fort, Amelia Island and other

Florida              strategic locations. Spain eventually cedes East Florida to the US.

1822-1825                      Spanish Cuba      Marines land in numerous cities in the Spanish island of Cuba and also

                                    and Puerto Rico  in Spanish Puerto Rico

1827                             Greece               Marines invade the Greek islands of Argentiere, Miconi, and Andross

1831                             Falkland/           US naval squadrons aggress the Falkland Islands in the South Atlanticc

Malvinas Islands

1832                             Sumatra, Dutch   US naval squadrons attack Qallah Battoo

                                    East Indies

1833                             Argentina           Forces land in Buenos Aires and engage local combatants

1835-1836                      Peru                  Troops dispatched twice for counter-insurgency operations

1836                             Mexico              Troops assist Texas war for independence

1837                             Canada              Naval incident on the Canadian border leads to mobilization of a large

force to invade Canada. War is narrowly averted

1838                             Sumatra, Dutch   US naval forces sent to Sumatra for punitive expedition

                                    East Indies

1840-1841                      Fiji                   Naval forces deployed, marines land

1841                             Samoa               Naval forces deployed, marines land

1842                             Mexico              Naval forces temporarily seize cities of Monterey and San Diego

1843                             China                Marines land in Canton

1843                             Ivory Coast        Marines land

1846-1848                      Mexico              War. Mexico cedes half of its territory to the US by the Treaty of

Guadeloupe Hidalgo

1849                             Ottoman Empire  Naval forces dispatched to Smyrna

                                    (Turkey)

1852-1853                      Argentina           Marines land in Buenos Aires

1854                             Nicaragua          Navy bombards and largely destroys city of San Juan del Norte.

Marines land and set fire to the city

1854                             Japan                Commodore Perry and his fleet deploy at Yokohama

1855                             Uruguay            Marines land in Montevideo

1856                             Colombia           Marines land for counter-insurgency campaign

                                    (Panama Region)

1856                             China                Marines deployed in Canton

1856                             Hawaii              Naval forces seize small islands of Jarvis, Baker, and Howland

1857                             Nicaragua          Marines land

1858                             Uruguay            Marines land in Montevideo

1858                             Fiji                   Marines land

1859                             Paraguay            Large naval force deployed

1859                             China                Troops enter Shanghai

1859                             Mexico              Military force enters northern area

1860                             Portuguese West Troops land at Kissembo

                                    Africa

1863                             Japan                Troops land at Shimonoseki

1864                             Japan                Troops landed in Yedo

1865                             Colombia           Marines landed

(Panama Region)

1866                             Columbia           Troops invade and seize Matamoros, later withdraw

                                    (Panama Region)

1866                             China                Marines land in Newhwang

1867                             Nicaragua          Marines land in Managua and Leon

1867                             Formosa Island   Marines land

                                    (Taiwan)

1867                             Midway Island    Naval forces seize this island in the Hawaiian Archipelago for a naval

base

1868                             Japan                Naval forces deployed at Osaka, Hiogo, Nagasaki, Yokohama, and

Negata

1868                             Uruguay            Marines land at Montevideo

1870                             Colombia           Marines landed

1871                             Korea                Forces landed

1873                             Colombia           Marines landed

                                    (Panama Region)

1874                             Hawaii              Sailors and marines landed

1876                             Mexico              Army again occupies Matamoros

1882                             British Egypt      Troops land

1885                             Colombia           Troops land in Colon and Panama City

                                    (Panama Region)

1885                             Samoa               Naval force deployed

1887                             Hawaii              Navy gains right ot build permanent naval base at Pearl Harbor

1888                             Haiti                 Troops landed

1888                             Samoa               Marines landed

1889                             Samoa               Clash with German naval forces

1890                             Argentina           US sailors land in Buenos Aires

1891                             Chile                 US sailors land in the major port city of Valparaiso

1891                             Haiti                 Marines land on US-claimed Navassa Island

1893                             Hawaii              Marines and other naval forces land and overthrow the monarchy

1894                             Nicaragua          Marines land at Bluefields on the eastern coast

1894-1895                      China                Marines are stationed at Tientsin and Beijing. A naval ship takes up

position at Newchwang

1894-1896                      Korea                Marines land and remain in Seoul

1895                             Colombia           Marines are sent to the town Bocas del Toro

1896                             Nicaragua          Marines land in the port of Corinto

1898                             Nicaragua          Marines land at the port city of San Juan del Sur

1898                             Guam                Naval forces seize Guam Island from Spain and the US holds the island

Permanently

1898                             Cuba                 Naval and land forces seize Cuba from Spain

1898                             Puerto Rico        Naval and land forces seize Puerto Rico from Spain and the US holds

the island permanently

1898                             Philippines         Naval forces defeat the Spanish fleet and the US takes control of the

Country

1899                             Philippines         Military units are reinforced for extensive counter-insurgency

Operations

1899                             Samoa               Naval forces land

1899                             Nicaragua          Marines land at the port city of Bluefields

1900                             China                US forces intervene in several cities

1901                             Colombia/          Marines land

                                    Panama

1902                             Colombia/          US forces land in Bocas de Toro

                                    Panama

1903                             Colombia/          With US backing, a group in northern Colombia declares independence

                                    Panama             as the state of Panama

1903                             Guam                Navy begins development in Apra Harbor of a permanent base

Installation

1903                             Honduras           Marines go ashore at Puerto Cortez

1903                             Dominican         Marines land in Santo Domingo

Republic

1904-1905                      Korea                Marines land and stay in Seoul

1906-1909                      Cuba                 Marines land. The US builds a major naval base at Guantanamo Bay

1907                             Nicaragua          Troops seize major centers

1907                             Honduras           Marines land and take up garrison in cities of Trujillo, Ceiba, Puerto

Cortez, San Pedro, Laguna and Choloma

1908                             Panama             Marines land and carry out operations

1910                             Nicaragua          Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto

1911                             Honduras           Marines intervene

1911-1941                      China                The US builds up its military presence in the country to a force of 5000

troops and a fleet of 44 vessels patrolling China’s coast and rivers

1912                             Cuba                 US sends army troops into combat in Havana

1912                             Panama             Army troops intervene

1912                             Honduras           Marines land

1912-1933                      Nicaragua          Marines intervene. A 20-year occupation of the country follows

1913                             Mexico              Marines land at Ciaris Estero

1914                             Dominican         Naval forces engage in battles in the city of Santo Domingo

                                    Republic

1914                             Mexico              US forces seize and occupy Mexico’s major port city of Veracruz from

April through November

1915-1916                      Mexico              An expeditionary force of the US Army under Gen. John j. Pershing

crosses the Texas border and penetrates several hundred miles into

Mexican territory. Eventually reinforced to over 11,000 officers and

men.

1914-1934                      Haiti                 Troops land, aerial bombardment leading to a 19-year military

Occupation

1916-1924                      Dominican         Military intervention leading to 8-year occupation

                                    Republic

1917-1933                      Cuba                 Landing of naval forces. Beginning of a 15-year occupation

1918-1920                      Panama             Troops intervene, remain on “police duty” for over 2 years

1918-1922                      Russia               Naval forces and army troops fight battles in several areas of the

country during a five-year period

1919                             Yugoslavia         Marines intervene in Dalmatia

1919                             Honduras           Marines land

1920                             Guatemala          Troops intervene

1922                             Turkey              Marines engaged in operations in Smyrna (Izmir)

1922-1927                      China                Naval forces and troops deployed during 5-year period

1924-1925                      Honduras           Troops land twice in two-year period

1925                             Panama             Marines land and engage in operations

1927-1934                      China                Marines and naval forces stationed throughout the country

1932                             El Salvador        Naval forces intervene

1933                             Cuba                 Naval forces deployed

1934                             China                Marines land in Foochow

1946                             Iran                   Troops deployed in northern province

1946-1949                      China                Major US army presence of about 100,000 troops, fighting, training and

advising local combatants

1947-1949                      Greece               US forces wage a 3-year counterinsurgency campaign

1948                             Italy                  Heavy CIA involvement in national elections

1948-1954                      Philippines         Commando operations, “secret” CIA war

1950-1953                      Korea                Korean War

1953                             Iran                   CIA overthrows democratically elected government of Prime Minister

Mohammed Mossadegh

1954                             Vietnam            Financial and materiel support for colonial French military operations,

leads eventually to direct US military involvement

1954                             Guatemala          CIA overthrows the government of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

1958                             Lebanon            US marines and army units totaling 14,000 land

1958                             Panama             Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens

1959                             Haiti                 Marines land

1960                             Congo               CIA-backed overthrow and assassination of Prime Minister Patrice

Lumumba

1960-1964                      Vietnam            Gradual introduction of military advisors and special forces

1961                             Cuba                 CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion

1962                             Cuba                 Nuclear threat and naval blockade (Cuban Missile Crisis)

1962                             Laos                  CIA-backed military coup

1963                             Ecuador             CIA backs military overthrow of President Jose Maria Balesco Ibarra

1964                             Panama             Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens

1964                             Brazil                CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government of Joao Goulart

and Gen. Castello Branco takes power

1965-1975                      Vietnam            Large commitment of military forces, including air, naval and ground

units numbering up to 500,000+ troops. Full-scale war, lasting for ten

years.

1965                             Indonesia           CIA-backed army coup overthrows President Sukarno and brings Gen.

Suharto to power

1965                             Congo               CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Joseph Kasavubu and

brings Joseph Mobutu to power

1965                             Dominican         23,000 troops land

                                    Republic           

1965-1973                      Laos                  Bombing campaign begins, lasting eight years

1966                             Ghana               CIA-backed military coup ousts President Kwame Nkrumah

1966-1967                      Guatemala          Extensive counter-insurgency operation

1969-1975                      Cambodia          CIA supports military coup against Prince Sihanouk, bringing Lon Nol

to power. Intensive bombing for seven years along border with

Vietnam

1970                             Oman                Counter-insurgency operation, including coordination with Iranian

marine invasion

1971-1973                      Laos                  Invasion by US and South Vietnamese forces

1973                             Chile                 CIA-backed military coup ousts government of President Salvador

Allende. Gen Augusto Pinochet comes to power.

1975                             Cambodia          Marines land, engage in combat with government forces

1976-1992                      Angola              Military and CIA operations

1980                             Iran                   Special operations units land in Iranian desert. Helicopter malfunction

leads to aborting of planned raid.

1981                             Libya                Naval jets shoot down two Libyan jets in maneuvers over the

Mediterranean

1981-1982                      El Salvador        CIA and special forces begin a long counter-insurgency campaign

1981-1990                      Nicaragua          CIA directs exile “Contra” operations. US air units drop sea mines in

harbors.

1982-1984                      Lebanon            Marines land and naval forces fire on local combatants.

1983                             Grenada             Military forces invade Grenada

1983-1989                      Honduras           Large program of military assistance aimed at conflict in Nicaragua

1984                             Iran                   Two Iranian jets shot down over the Persian Gulf

1958                             Panama             Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens

1986                             Libya                US aircraft bomb the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, including direct

strikes at official residence of President Muamar al Qadaffi

1986                             Bolivia              Special Forces units engage in counter-insurgency

1987-1988                      Iran                   Naval forces block Iranian shipping. Civilian airliner shot down by

missile cruiser

1989                             Libya                Naval aircraft shoot down two Libyan jets over Gulf of Sidra

1989                             Philippines         CIA and Special Forces involved in counterinsurgency.

1989-1990                      Panama             27,000 troops as well as naval and air power use to overthrow

government of President Noriega.

1990                             Liberia              Troops deployed

1990-1991                      Iraq                   Major military operation, including naval blockade, air strikes; large

number of troops attack Iraqi forces in occupied Kuwait

1991-2003                      Iraq                   Control of Iraqi airspace in north and south of the country with periodic

attacks on air and ground targets.

1991                             Haiti                 CIA-backed military coup ousts President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

1992-1994                      Somalia             Special operations forces intervene

1992-1994                      Yugoslavia         Major role in NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro

1993-1995                      Bosnia               Active military involvement with air and ground forces.

1994-1996                      Haiti                 Troops depose military rulers and restore President Jean-Bertrand

Aristide to office

1995                             Croatia              Krajina Serb airfields attacked

1996-1997                      Zaire (Congo)     Marines involved in operations in eastern region of the country

1997                             Liberia              Troops deployed

1998                             Sudan                Air strikes destroy country’s major pharmaceutical plant

1998                             Afghanistan        Attack on targets in the country

1998                             Iraq                   Four days of intensive air and missile strikes

1999                             Yugoslavia         Major involvement in NATO air strikes

2001                             Macedonia         NATO troops shift and partially disarm Albanian rebels

2001                             Afghanistan        Air attacks and ground operations oust Taliban government and install

a new regime.

2003                             Iraq                   Invasion with large ground, air and naval forces ousts government of

Saddam Hussein and establishes new government.

2003-Present                  Iraq                   Occupation force of 150,000 troops in protracted counter-insurgency

War

2004                             Haiti                 Marines land. CIA-backed forces overthrow President Jean-Bertrand

Aristide.

There have been many more interventions and operations since 2005. Here are a few notables:

Unrestricted use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. 2011 military intervention in Libya. The raid and killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. 2011-Present, US combat troops in Uganda sent to advise. 2012, troops deployed to Jordan to help it contain the Syrian Civil War. Americans have been and are involved in Somalia, Chad, Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, and elsewhere. The US has been involved in numerous coups and attempted coups, including: 2007-Iran, 2009-Honduras, 2011-Libya, 2015-present, Yemen, 2019-present, Venezuela, and most recently the coup that overthrew Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2019 that has now been reversed and has blown up in our face.

It would seem we have had no qualms about flexing our military muscle and meddling in other countries whenever it suited our purposes and interests. It would appear the roots of an empire run deep in our family tree. During my more than 75 years of life, we have been actively involved in military operations, wars, and other actions almost without interruption. The US maintains more than 800 bases in at least 80 countries. It is the largest arms dealer on the planet and spends more annually on defense than the next dozen countries combined. It is one reason our democracy is in such peril.

Some of our bellicose behavior, I realize, is a reflection of the time they occurred. Nations with the ability to do so have rarely restrained themselves from flaunting their military superiority to obtain their objectives. That should not be interpreted and accepted as an excuse for behavior in any era.

Our ancestors arrived on this continent with the intention of conquest, colonization, and removal of any obstacle to their designs by whatever means necessary. This behavior is embedded in our DNA. We are programmed to eliminate any who are perceived as competition for access to resources.

War and conflict have been a part of our heritage. Conflicts with indigenous tribes commenced as soon as our European ancestors stepped foot on these shores in 1607. It continued until the Wounded Knee Massacre near the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota on December 29, 1890. Major conflicts during the colonial period connected to events elsewhere included: Queen Anne’s War-1702-1713, King George’s War-1744-1748, and The French and Indian War-1756-1763. To this list, we can also add instances of slave rebellions in the South.

We were not predestined to be a warrior nation. History, circumstance, and perhaps something peculiar in our national makeup may have made it more likely. Was England’s sending of more than 50,000 convicted felons to the colonies before the Revolution a factor? Was it convicted felons plus thousands more of the poor and unwanted sent to the colonies as indentured servants? Did Evangelical Christianity that fed abundantly off emotion and ignorance play a part? Was it a chance outcome fueled by personalities willing to take high risks that came to the colonies and uninhibited by society norms? These are questions others with more understanding and expertise will have to ponder. The result, however, is evident. We are not shy about asserting ourselves and using force to get what we want.

For most of our history, we have downplayed and hidden our behavior and activities from view. Our many intrusions and adventures around the world and especially in Latin America were never discussed or acknowledged. These things were never talked about or mentioned in any history class. The portrayal of our conflict with Native Americans was almost always a reaction to aggression and barbaric acts. Our massacring villages were recorded as ‘battles.’ My college classes in diplomatic history never mentioned any but the most famous instances listed above. We portrayed ourselves as exceptional, believing repeating this lie will cleanse us of sin.

Two world wars, the Cold War, and the endless preparation for war pushed us past a tipping point. What these events did was to expose what has been shielded from view. Embracing empire, militarism, and glorifying soldiers as warriors allowed us to see behind the curtain. We got a glimpse of who we are. We may try to ignore it. We may try to hide it, but it is what it is, and we are who we are.

Acknowledging these things allows us to look at and view our history from a different perspective. The toxic mixture of right-wing zealotry, paranoid fears of communism, and the Cold War, changed our attitudes toward war. Seduced by material abundance served up by a booming postwar economy and fueled by the release of pent-up energy of millions of returning veterans threw open the door to a growing militarization of society. Public attention was distracted, intoxicated, and addicted to the acquisition of things.

I remember the early 1950s when we practiced duck and cover drills in elementary school. We had no idea what we are doing, but we did as we were instructed by teachers who were as confused as we were. I remember rumors in my small midwestern town promoting fears of Russian bombers. It was whispered there were plane spotters with binoculars in the tower at the junior high school every night to keep watch.  

The gluttonous annual defense budgets, the peacetime draft supporting the bulging military establishment infiltrated our thoughts and took over our thinking. The way current events were presented heightened the fears and hysteria ensuring the defense department would be well funded. There was the Korean War, the Suez Canal crisis in 1956, the shock of Sputnik in 1957, the intervention to prevent China from invading Taiwan in 1958, culminating with the Cuban Missile Crisis during October 1962.

President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the dangers posed by the growth of the military-industrial complex. No one listened. The page had been turned, and our conversion, not just to empire, but a highly militarized one that protected its interests, not necessarily the people’s.

An Empire is what we’ve been since Thomas Jefferson encouraged Congress to take advantage of Napoleon’s offer and purchased the vast center of the continent known as Louisiana Territory. It set a tone that has continued. We practiced ethnic cleansing and genocide on the indigenous peoples to clear the land. A manufactured war with Mexico gave us control over the continent, war with Spain freed us from North American containment. World War II ended with us in command. We controlled most of the world’s wealth, we had a large military, and we led in making the rules for the world that was to follow.

The Cold War facilitated the growing empire and particularly the military force required to enforce and control it. The Soviet Union became an unwilling but necessary partner in helping us achieve the militarization of society. They were the convenient boogieman used as an excuse for an ever-increasing military establishment.

The Soviet Union disappeared in 1991. The strain of trying to keep up with the US caused the Soviet Empire to collapse and disintegrate. The American Empire was unrestrained and able to impose its will for a time. But narrow thinking comes at a price, and we still have not acknowledged the terrible price we have paid. Nor have we experienced the impact of policies and activities that now threaten to come home and overwhelm us.

The rise of militarism was paralleled by the growth of the gun culture accompanied by pseudo-militias and other extremist groups. The culture was inundated by a fascination with violence. Our movies, TV screens, video games, and the evening news were filled with displays and portrayals of violence, particularly with a wild west shoot’em up attitude.

The constant threat of war and engaging in conflicts destroy a democracy. The Cold War caused a slow erosion and strangling of American democracy. Our transformation into a fascist empire was gradual. The change was subtle and almost invisible, revealed in small ways. Our servicemen and women were rechristened as warriors. There were constant references to those in uniform, thanking them for their service. Our leaders ended every speech with “God bless our troops.” Advertisements glorifying our armed forces filled the airways. However, the material support that would make their lives better or take care of them or their families in the event they were killed or injured was absent.

We spread our military tentacles of control around the planet. They are our means of influence and sway. Our goal is to maintain access to critical raw materials for Americans and our allies in poor and developing countries at prices we set. They have to adhere to the rules we made. The IMF, WTO, World Bank, and other international institutions are the enforcers.

Americans are confounded discovering how much we are distrusted and hated in the world. They are confused when the rest of the world watches the Star Wars saga and see the US identified with the evil empire. “Why do they hate us?”

What you send out into the world eventually comes home, and the policies and activities we developed and used in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere are returning to haunt us. It was inevitable that the means we use to influence and control other countries would be used for the same purpose at home. The temptation to use the tools you have developed to achieve the desired end on others is not going to be restricted “for foreign use only.”

Where do we go from here? Having an empire abroad leads inevitably to autocracy and dictatorship at home. History provides ample examples. A culture’s values are expressed by what it promotes and presents to others. When I was in the Middle East in 2016, I observed American movies flooding the TV screens. They were examples of the vilest and most violent films Hollywood has produced. It made me sad. We are better than this.

Our fascination with war and addiction to violence leads to death and extinction. We are not the first to tread this path. The historical graveyard is filled with other examples. We must decide if this is how we want the American experiment to end?

[1] Global Policy Forum 
December 2005 

Note: This list does not pretend to be definitive or absolutely complete. Nor does it seek to explain or interpret the interventions. Information and interpretation on selected interventions will be later included as links. Note that US operations in World Wars I and II have been excluded. 

See also at: Jerrymlawson.medium.com

See also at: https://www.datadriveninvestor.com/2021/02/23/when-did-we-begin-worshiping-war/

Tiny Ascension Island: Key to the Future?

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Ascension Island

Ascension Island is a tiny volcanic rock south of the equator in the middle of the South Atlantic. Located almost midway between Brazil and Africa, it may provide the key to changing the hostile environments we will encounter when we venture to other worlds. It may also be the key to restoring the Earth.

Ascension is an island of only 34 square miles (88 square kilometers). The British Overseas Territory was essentially a barren rock pile when Charles Darwin visited there at the end of his second voyage aboard the HMS Beagle in 1836.

The Spanish explorer, Joao da Nova, discovered Ascension Island in 1501. It attracted no interest due to its dry climate and little freshwater. Passing ships continued to stop so sailors could catch seabirds and turtles for a change-of-diet, but no permanent habitation.

Settlement of Ascension did not arrive until the British Navy placed a garrison in 1815 as insurance against Napoleon, exiled on Saint Helena some 800 miles to the southeast, attempting to escape. It became an imperial outpost and a rest stop for scientific explorers like Darwin and his friend botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker.

Darwin was on his way home after his five-year exploration mission on the HMS Beagle when it stopped at Ascension Island in 1836. He had visited Saint Helena first and came to Ascension out of curiosity and a desire to compare the two islands. He found little on Ascension about which to be excited. It was an arid island buffeted by dry trade winds from Southern Africa with sparse vegetation and few animals or insects. There were no trees and the little rain that fell quickly evaporated. The Scarcity of freshwater impeded the growth or expansion of the imperial outpost.

Despite its shortcomings, Darwin was intrigued by this island. A few years later when Joseph Hooker embarked upon his scientific adventure and stopped at this barren island outpost on his way home. After returning to London in 1843 and with encouragement from Darwin, Hooker, the botanist, devised a plan to alter its environment.

Hooker’s father was the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Hooker, assisted by his father, arranged for trees to be shipped to Ascension to use them to capture the rain. They hoped that using trees to capture moisture from the rain would help make the soil fertile and change the barren island into a lush garden. It was hope without any evidence or example suggesting the plan might work.

Over the years that followed, new shipments of trees of many varieties were shipped annually from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa, and Argentina. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the island was home to Norfolk pines, eucalyptus, bamboo, and banana trees. The 2,817 foot Green Mountain, highest on the island, was transformed into a cloud forest characterized by a persistent low-level cloud cover.

The trees drew moisture from the clouds, enriching the soil and allowing other vegetation to thrive as hoped. Darwin and Hooker assisted by the Royal Navy turned the barren island landscape into a lush oasis. The success of this experiment was far beyond their expectations.   

Ascension Island cloud forest

What Darwin, Hooker, and the Royal Navy created was the first self-sustaining and self-reproducing ecosystem. What might we learn from this first attempt in terraforming? The environment they created is artificial. It has a mixture of plants and trees that do not belong together in nature, but they are growing side-by-side. Such ecosystems as this should take over a million years to develop through a slow process of co-evolution. This ecosystem was built over a few decades by the Royal Navy. The lessons learned here are of immense future importance. It tells us we can create a fully functioning ecosystem through careful planning, trial-and-error, and aided by a few chance accidents.

The process is now known as ecological fitting. The plants on Ascension were collected from locations around-the-world and have self-organized into a thriving artificial system. The success Darwin, Hooker, and the Royal Navy accomplished on Ascension Island remains relatively unknown and largely ignored by the scientific community. Its implications have immense potential importance both in our need to restore the Earth and in the future when we try to reshape environments on other worlds.

Combatting climate change and mitigating global warming, we must change our thinking and behavior. Rather than taking from it by drilling, extracting, stripping, and pumping resources from the Earth, we must invest in restoring the environment and ecosystems to protect its health and welfare. Creating artificial ecosystems by planting large-scale planned forests may not be our first choice, but it may become the only choice. The knowledge and expertise we acquire have implications and impact on what we do later elsewhere on the Earth and in outer space. We may learn how to turn deserts and other barren areas we have created by our rush to extract, drill, and pump Earth’s bounty to support our greed and lust green again.

Green mountain shows us much about how ecosystems form and function in ways we never imagined. It may help us understand how an ecosystem can be constructed and used for carbon sequestration to combat global warming and climate change. Planned forests may be lacking in diversity and the regional peculiarities we find in nature, but they are a small price to pay given what we have lost in our currently warming world.

History and experience suggest humans do not want to face hard realities. We try our best to avoid difficult choices and making painful decisions, even when our very survival is at risk. We seem unable to defer on pleasure even knowing continuing a behavior leads to death. Consequently, acknowledging we must learn to live within the sustainable limits of the Earth’s capacity to regenerate is a requirement and not a choice for becoming a spacefaring species.

Why? Because wherever we go into the cosmos, we take Earth with us. But before we go elsewhere, we have to have a healthy Earth to draw from and return. We have to recreate Earth wherever we go. Any life we find elsewhere will undoubtedly be toxic to us. Bringing the Earth with us wherever we go is not a choice. It is a necessity.  

Global warming and climate change make studying what happened on Ascension Island imperative to help us restore the Earth. Here lies a gift for us, hidden on a small forgotten island in the middle of nowhere. We only need to see and take advantage of what we have inherited. It may provide how we may soon need to save ourselves.

As always, Wabi-sabi

Link to Jerry’s work on Medium: Jerrymlawson.medium.com

Reporting the News

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The decline of American democracy has a long history with many actors. There are multiple domains, one of which is getting news and information to the public by sources independent of government control. It is the vital link in the health and welfare of any democracy. It is one reason why our founders enshrined freedom of the press in the constitution.

No discussion about reporting the news can ignore how news outlets have been gobbled up by a few large conglomerates. Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS, Fox, AT&T, and Charter Communications are among the largest in the U.S. There used to be a local spin or angle to the news that came off the wires. Today there is sameness and uniformity in coverage and presentation that reminds me of how we once viewed Pravda in the former Soviet Union. All corporate news comes essentially from the same sources. Our alternative is to look at and read the many alternative news sites that have appeared and are continuing to grow. Some are practicing real journalism.

One who has written extensively about the problems of American media is Robert McChesney. He states, “Democratic theory posits that society needs journalism to perform three main duties: to act as a rigorous watchdog of the powerful and those who wish to be powerful; to ferret out truth from lies, and to present a wide range of informed positions on key issues.”[1] Our media fails at all these tasks.

The decline in our getting the news and information we need and the rise of fake news, alternative facts, and post-truth can be traced back to the early 1970s. That is when the news became the news show. Up to that point, the evening news focused on providing the major news events and information to the public. There, were commercials, but they took a backseat. It was not the primary focus. True there were omissions, but news organizations did try to inform. That changed in the early 1970s when ratings became dominant and news became just another network profit center. The evening news ceased to about what was happening in the world, or often what was paramount, and transformed into an overpaid personality parade whose prime purpose was to hold the audience’s attention between commercials.

Blanket, non-stop news coverage of celebrity woes and high profile crime while ignoring or downplaying issues such as racism, inequality of wealth and opportunity, Medicare reform, healthcare costs and coverage, climate change and global warming, corporate crime, and a long list of other issues amounts to providing the public a lollipop in place of a meal of substance. It may satisfy your immediate desire to eat something sweet but does nothing to relieve your hunger. The media act in concert with government acts and corporate dictates by providing mental masturbation to distract us from our problems. Alas, it is no surprise their credibility has fallen faster than the stock market in the great crash.

Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency would never have happened without his celebrity TV program, The Apprentice, fueled by $1 billion in free advertising and television exposure supplied generously by all the major television and other news outlets. 

The vulgar over coverage of celebrity shenanigans and bizarre crimes trivializes our institutions and their processes. Nowhere is this more evident than in what happens in high-profile criminal cases. What the public needs and deserves to know should not overshadow the accused’s right to a fair and just trial, including the presumption of innocence until otherwise proven by a preponderance of the evidence or beyond reasonable doubt presented at trial. Frankly, the public has no automatic right to know “anything” before its presentation at trial. That is the proper forum for the release of most information. The fact it floods the press shows us how corrupted we have allowed the process to become in the interest of achieving public relations and media rating objectives. I seriously doubt any of these high profile trials are in any way fair. It’s all about money, exposure, timing, appearances, and the 24/7 news feed. How sad this is for all of us.

The second and more profound change that impacted receiving the news and being informed was the bi-partisan act of repealing the fairness doctrine during the Reagan presidency that had required TV and radio news outlets to allow equal time for opposing views. Its elimination led to opening the doors and windows to talk radio. Fox News, Sinclair Media, and others moved in to flood the airways accentuating one highly biased point-of-view with nothing to contest it. It opened the door to fake news, half-truths, innuendo, lies, and more.

It cleared the way for a number of online sites and broadcast media to promote hate and lies that ultimately led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol and the Congress by an enraged mob egged on by the Liar in chief on January 6, 2021.    

There was an important reason freedom of the press was enshrined in the constitution by our founders. They understood the importance of the public having access to accurate information about the actions, behaviors, policies, and character of those who held the levers of power. What has occurred over the last several decades is the erosion and suppressing of that function. Six media conglomerates control more than 90% of media in America. The people who are employed by these six media giants are paid lots of money. Money is, it’s not rocket science, very intoxicating and enticing. You do not have to spend a lot of time watching the commercial network media news to discover their boundaries. They know their limits; it is self-censorship. They have a higher priority to adhere to. It is a personal priority. The network news organizations will never allow an expose’ of their conglomerate employer. ABC is not going to investigate Disney. CBS is not going to reveal dirty laundry from VIACOM. NBC is not going to disclose anything derogatory, Fox, well, it is Fox. As Sinclair Lewis noted long ago, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding.” The quote applies to far more than he originally intended.

I find watching the evening news more interesting for all they ignore to report rather than what is covered. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, I knew they were there 24 hours before the American media announced the invasion. How did I know? I was monitoring the Times of India at the time and saw their report. It pays to cast your net for news far and wide. Today that means looking at several online independent news outlets where the motivation is providing the public information unimpeded by concerns for a bloated salary.

It is no surprise American media are held in such low esteem. On some level, we know we are not being provided the information we need. We know crucial information is being either ignored or withheld. It is instinctive. The public does not trust the messenger, and for a democracy that cannot be. If we want our democracy to prosper, we must change how we are provided the news and information we need to be responsible and participating citizens. That means we must find a way to decouple the delivery of the news from profit-driven corporate conglomerates. We need some kind of independent funding of news providers.

Print media is in peril in America. I do not know if it is the same elsewhere. Our peculiar focus on profits skewers our approach. The newspapers I am familiar with first eliminated the composing room and gave the editorial staff the responsibility for pagination. That meant most of a reporter’s time was consumed with putting pages together, not digging for news. It meant calling contacts on the phone rather than seeing them and eyeballing their responses to questions. It meant developing relationships and seeing idiosyncrasies that reveal far more than words.

My local newspaper is slowly evaporating. The daily paper comes in four sections. The sections once were composed of many pages and multiple sheets. Today these sections are often no more than four pages. The Sunday paper is today the size of the daily paper of decades past. It also has changed from an eight-column to a seven-column format. Less is less.

As the size diminished did the coverage. Maybe if there was a focus on providing news readers were interested and cared about, they would find more readers. But, no, instead they cut more staff and deliver a shoddier product at a higher price. Such is the road to extinction.

The most dramatic change in media has been the emergence of the talking heads, or should I say thought shapers. Thought shapers are what they are. Fox News is the perfect example. Fox has a loyal cultish following. Its viewers believe without question the presentation they are getting is fair and balanced because Fox says so. This loyal cultish following can only repeat what they are told. They glued to or have Fox News on their TVs throughout the day. Fox is the only view they see, hear and believe. They become entranced. They repeat what they are told to think. It is as if they no longer have a mind of their own. I have many former friends to draw from. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels would be ecstatic

These thought shapers come in all political stripes. They are on the left as well as on the right. Our most dramatic failure as a society and nation is our failure to adequately prepare our public to develop the critical thinking skills needed to identify bias, fake news, lies, and half-truths. Doing so, we arm them and immunize us all to the inevitable effects of the relentless repeating of the big lie. We must learn to seek out diverse views from a diverse number of sources, domestic and foreign. Of course, corporate America might then find using some popular forms of advertising ineffective. The government might have a more difficult time misleading all of us about its activities and intentions. Some preachers might find their ability to fleece followers more difficult. Things might actually have to work, and wealth might be more equitably shared. Imagine that.

[1] The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communications Politics in the 21st Century, NYU Press, Monthly Review Press, 2004, page 57.

Also at:

https://jerrymlawson.medium.com/reporting-the-news-data-driven-investor-37dc734a1839

The Relevance of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

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Urras and Anarres. Photo by Antonis Dimopoulos@menacius

The 1974 science fiction novel The Dispossessed has relevance for us today. Ursula K. Le Guin’s works are filled with her concerns for the environment and health of planet earth and the dark underside of man and our governing institutions. In The Dispossessed, Urras is a mythical planet in the Tau Ceti star system in the constellation Cetus. Tau Ceti is a star closer than 12 light-years from the Earth and is spectrally similar to our sun, although possessing 78% of its mass.

Le Guin places a planet similar to ours with a larger moon in orbit around it. Environmentally, Urras is like Earth. Politically it mirrors what ours was during the Cold War in 1974 when the novel was written. A-Io, the dominant world power, is similar to the United States in 2013. There is the illusion of liberty and freedom, but everyone and everything is under constant surveillance by the state. It is a society driven by a lust for wealth and acquiring material possessions, and unrestrained corporate greed and power.

A-Io is a two-class society defined by extreme sexism. There are the very wealthy, a small struggling middle class, and a vast underclass of working poor who live in poverty. The poor are excluded and denied access to a more abundant life. They do not have access to human services available for the elite. A-Io is a fascist police state with an appearance of civility. Its resemblance to what we have become makes the careful and reflective reader more than uncomfortable.

The other principal power on Urras is Thu, a highly centralized socialist state resembling the Soviet Union of the 1970s. Urras has a planetary government similar to the United Nations. Thu and A-Io are careful never to engage in a war directly against each other. Engagements are limited to fighting in lesser developed parts of the planet without using weapons that might cause undue harm on a planetary scale.

The planet remains free of the environmental havoc and destruction we are experiencing. Those from the Earth who come to Urras see it is still a green garden, a reminder of what the Earth was.

The planet has experienced its own unique development. The moon of Urras, Anarres, is large enough to support life. More than 170 years before the story in the novel takes place, the poor rebelled. They had been inspired by the ideas of a woman philosopher named Odo. She promoted a society founded on anarchism combined with libertarianism and socialism.

The revolt ended with an agreement allowing Odo’s followers called Odonians to leave and be transported to Anarres. Anarres and Urras are actually a dual planetary system where each is seen as the moon. Anarres is not altogether hospitable. It is arid and has a less dense atmosphere, and most of its native life found in its small oceans. Anarres possesses limited plant and vegetable life, which means there are no land animals other than those transplanted from Urras.

The terms of separation closed most access to either world by the other. But Anarres has mineral deposits in critical need on Urras, and Urras has finished goods, plants, animals, and other products needed by Anarres. Transports arrive periodically on Anarres from Urras at tightly controlled designated areas for purposes of trade.

Anarres is a harsh world that requires much cooperation from its inhabitants. It has no highly centralized governmental bureaucracy or governing institutions. After enduring over 150 years living in a harsh environment, the Anarreans have found ways to effectively preserve their individuality. They learned to work harmoniously together to reach shared goals. They avoided having governing institutions that become self-perpetuating, self-sustaining, oppressive, and detrimental to their needs and interests.      

Shevek is an Anarren mathematician/scientist who has made a scientific discovery he wishes to share with humanity. I-Ao wants to prevent his sharing his work and use it to their advantage. Shevek is hopeful sharing his discovery can become a means of bringing Annarens and Urrasns together, or at least open dialogue and increase contacts between the two worlds.

Ultimately Shevek realizes he is being used by A-Io and attempts to meet ordinary people who have been kept hidden from him. Becoming aware of A-Io’s intentions and the fact he is now a fugitive leads him to seek safety at the Earth embassy. Shevek gives his discovery to the Earth ambassador to ensure his discovery will be shared with all humanity.  Earthlings not only save him from arrest and probable torture by I-Ao but also open their own contact with the Annarens that had been closed to them return him to Annares.

LeGuin’s fiction is a snapshot of the height of the Cold War in the mid-1970s. Both sides finally realized that nuclear war was unwinnable and would lead to the extinction of our species. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions. But the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union served only to expose our own weaknesses. Like the people of I-Ao, America needs an external enemy, a boogieman. We need an enemy to maintain our focus, provide purpose, distract us from more important issues, maintain control, and keep us from fighting amongst ourselves.

The end of the Cold War-era introduced far more uncertainty. We are faced with increased competition for increasingly scarce resources, locked into an economic model destroying habitability and the ability to sustain life. It is worth noting that although Le Guin makes little mention of what Earth is like, she leaves no doubt about where we may soon find ourselves. She provides us a picture of what we face if we continue our current path, addicted to fossil fuels and failing to invest in the Earth rather than continually taking from it.

If climate change and global warming are ignored or given little support or effort beyond lip service, the consequences are dire. Le Guin mentions in passing what our world had become. It was ravaged by war, destruction of the environment, and the collapse of ecosystems caused by the rush to extract natural resources fueled by greed and lust for money. The few who survived were forced to live under a totalitarian system necessitated by extreme circumstances.

We govern our activities adhering to an economic paradigm from another time. Neoliberal globalism is wreaking havoc on the planet, putting all civilization at risk. Our political system, considered brilliant for its time, was developed 250 years ago in a vastly simpler world that is no longer relevant or able to cope with and solve problems. Populations across the globe are growing restless. Global temperatures are warming, causing drought, famine, and increased desertification. Sea levels rise as ice caps and glaciers melt. Soon, two billion or more people will be forced to move elsewhere to survive, threatening global stability and order. Chaos looms on the horizon, and no wall will stem its flow. Desperate people will do whatever they must to survive. Our world is ripe for someone, an Odo, to redefine and re-state and enunciate the meaning and purpose of human existence and civilization in a new age.

As always, Wabi-sabi

Also on Medium: Jerrymlawson.medium.com

The Romance and Magic of Steam Locomotives

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Restored Union Pacific 4014 Steam Locomotive at the Yermo UP yard

What is it about a steam locomotive I find so alluring? Why do I feel such deep emotion whenever I hear its whistle? Why do so many others find it so enticing and enchanting? On Wednesday, October 10, 2019, my son and I got up before 5 am, and left Santa Monica for Yermo, California. Newly restored Union Pacific 4014 steam locomotive stopped there overnight before continuing to LA in preparation for scheduled weekend excursions.

More than 100 enthusiasts gathered at the Yermo UP yard to take pictures, stare, talk with the crew, and watch the dragon come alive in the predawn darkness. The assemblage included railfans, photographers, children of many ages, old railroaders, and the curious.

After leaving Yermo, we stopped in Barstow, CA, to watch the monstrous #4014 pass. The locomotive has a 4-8-8-4 configuration and is 132 feet long. After Barstow, we proceeded to Victorville, where 4014 paused, to perform routine greasing of vital parts and a 45-minute rest. A large crowd packed the area of the Amtrak station with those wanting to see this marvelous machine.

The rest of the day was more of the same. Wherever we went, there were hordes of people assembled eager to see this almost 80-year-old mechanical marvel come alive again.

My fascination with steam locomotives began sometime around age 4 or 5 in Fortville, Indiana, a small bedroom community northeast of Indianapolis. It is located on what was then mainline of the New York Central Railroad. I was drawn to and fascinated by the big locomotives hauling freight as they passed through the center of Fortville at 60-70 mph.

Why do I react so emotionally? Is it pure nostalgia, or does it originate somewhere in my psyche? Maybe I connect these machines from my early childhood to my feelings of rejection by my father. He ignored me and showed significant partiality to my older brother.

I understood at 4 or 5-years-old, my father didn’t care about me, wasn’t interested, and purposefully ignored me. It was only the last year of my mother’s almost 104 years of life that she revealed he had tried to have the doctor abort the pregnancy and thus me.

I was reminded of when our youngest son purchased throttle time for his brother and me to control another steam locomotive. Nickel Plate #765 is owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It has always been and remains one of my most memorable moments. To be in control of a machine weighing close to a million pounds was an unforgettable experience.

I have shared many such moments with my sons throughout our lives. We lived close to the Norfolk Southern Railroad, and our oldest son was fascinated and attracted to every freight train that passed by. His younger brother later joined him, but the big turning point came a bit later.

Locomotive Nickel Plate #765 was rebuilt in 1979 after spending almost 20 years perched along the St. Mary’s river in a Fort Wayne park. The “Berkshire” locomotive was built by the Lima Locomotive Works in 1944. It was principally used to haul freight. Nickel Plate 765 weighs 800,000 pounds, loaded with 22,000 gallons of water in one tender and 22 tons of coal. Because the water towers once used to refill steam locomotives have vanished, 765 has an auxiliary tender with a second 22,000 gallons of water.


Nickel Plate 765 Steam Locomotive returning to Fort Wayne, Indiana after an excursion

When our sons were 8 and 10-years-old, I took them on an excursion behind Nickel Plate 765 from the railyard in nearby New Haven to Peru, Indiana, and back. The excursion route flooded me with many boyhood memories. It passed through Wabash, Indiana, where I saw what remained of the woods and fields where I played. I saw “my” house from the railroad standing on the hill in the distance. It was home to three generations of my family and to me for 18 years. I felt a momentary pang of pain.

The old Wabash line of the modern Norfolk Southern Railroad follows the broad flat Maumee Spillway carved from the glacial lake once covering the area. The railroad was built in places on the old Wabash & Erie Canal towpath. You can often see the old canal bed. You also see the remnants of the old interurban railroad that ran along this same route.

The rich farmland, some of which was once a swamp, appeared as a sea of browning corn broken by the green trees. There were birches, willows, box elders, maples, ashes, hickories, oaks, some walnuts, and others.

There has always been something special about steam locomotives and listening to their high-pitched whistles piercing the stillness. I recall listening for two longs, a short and another long blare of the whistle as the engine approached another crossing. Seeing a steam locomotive and especially hearing the whistle lying in bed in the still of the night is akin to the mystical experience many feel going to the ocean. It is a compelling experience.

The old Wabash Railroad line is physically a central feature of my life. My paternal grandparents lived in a house located next to the Wabash yard in Peru, Indiana. My maternal grandparent’s house, where I grew up, is located near the railroad. The house we lived in when my sons were introduced to trains was close to the railroad. I have lived somewhere near this railroad most of my life.

These thoughts filled my mind as I sat in the backseat while my two sons discuss our route and strategy for chasing Union Pacific 4014. We stop periodically at strategically identified locations where we can get out and find a vantage point to observe and take countless pictures. At every stop between Barstow and the Union Pacific’s West Colton Yard in Bloomington, California, east of Los Angeles, we are met or joined by hordes of others gathering for the same ill-defined mystical purpose. We are all attracted to the same magic and enchantment of this magnificent relic of a lost world.

As the days passed, my thoughts turned to my hometown of Fort Wayne. The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society proposed a rail and transportation history center to be included in the city’s riverfront development plans. Some who are influential in this proposed development have failed to see the value of such an attraction. Sadly, they recently removed the idea from the riverfront plans with a promise to help The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society find a suitable site nearby. I hope they are sincere, but experience has taught that governments are overly adept at using this tactic. It is a useful tool derailing and putting in “as soon as hell freezes over” projects and ideas beyond their vision. It’s analogous to Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football.

Headwater’s Junction, as the proposed rail history attraction was called, would attract thousands of visitors to the city’s downtown. The plan included a roundhouse filled with other FWRHS locomotives and rolling stock, Interurban display, meeting room, restaurant, and other facilities. The proposed location placed it on a site where a railyard had been. It was also adjacent to property connected to the city’s interurban past. It would also have allowed for building a future short connecting these attractions to the city’s acclaimed children’s zoo. It did not happen. Vision is the rarest of traits and is not often associated with politicians and established interests. We can hope the next turn of the wheel will bring new leadership with a different perspective and willingness to take advantage of the opportunity it represents. At this point, it is only a wish and a hope.

Throughout the days of these excursions, I watched the large crowds in wonder. People lined the more than 100-mile route. They chased 4014 in cars and gathered at the most photogenic locations. As a witness, I could not help but ask myself what it is about these awe-inspiring mechanical machines of a simpler age that so many find enticing and irresistible. Large caravans of cars jammed Interstate 15 and side roads, doing best to tag along, follow, and chase 4014 wherever it went. I watched as we stood in awe, joy, and even a few tears. These machines invoke something deep inside us. They rouse emotions, unconscious feelings, and yearnings we never realized were there, waiting for the proper stimulus to be awakened.

I stood on the bridge over the West Colton Union Pacific Yard surrounded by 200 or more people of all ages, sexes, races, and ethnicities. We were all part of the same tribe with the focus of attention on a colossal black bemouth belching smoke and steam, filling the air with its rhythms and its music as it passed under us.

I cannot explain the attraction. I have tried to understand it. I have tried my best to understand and express it, but I really cannot explain it. More importantly, it does not matter. I simply enjoy being in the moment and letting the experience wash over me and consume my awareness. Next year, if the opportunity arises, I will do it all over again.

As with all things, Wabi-sabi    

Also available at: jerrymlawson.medium.com

The Wile E. Coyote Cartoon: Exposing America’s Flawed Approach to Problem Solving

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edtropolis.deviantart.com

Roadrunner cartoons were among my favorites growing up. When my sons were young, I enjoyed watching and sharing these classic funnies with them. It was a cherished Saturday morning ritual for a few short years. Cartoons in the early 1980s were primarily for entertainment and not the not-so-cleverly contrived animations we see now that seek to do far more than entertain. I watched them with my sons because it was something they enjoyed. Watching, I discovered the Road Runner cartoon seemed to put our approach to problem-solving into clear perspective

The roadrunner is a dumb bird possessing only one asset, incredible speed. On the other hand, the wily coyote seems to have everything going for him. He is a regular genius. So how does this dumb bird keep from ending up in the jaws of the intelligent predator?

We soon learn the coyote has a peculiar flaw. The predator, with all his advantages, still cannot catch the dumb little roadrunner. Here, in metaphor, is how we, like the wily coyote, have learned to approach problem-solving situations. The coyote, rather than devising a straightforward plan, continually escalates his approach. After each failure, it adds more inputs. It expends more energy, time, capital, technology, and resources expecting to satisfy his obsession. It wants the stupid bird for dinner. Of course, what we see, and what makes the cartoon funny and work are the luckless carnivore’s progressively more spectacular failures. His genius is repeatedly thwarted by the dumb bird’s simple defense.

Our approach to solving problems bears a striking resemblance to that of the wily coyote. We keep using more energy, capital, time, technology, and scarce resources to solve problems, yet things keep getting worse. We are mired in muck, trying to solve our problems using the same thinking that created them. The climate crisis looms. The health crisis grows more overwhelming. A financial collapse waits only for the right moment, and terrorists threaten us at home as well as abroad. Like the coyote, we still are no closer to solving our problems than before. All we seem to have accomplished is the squandering of vast quantities of energy and resources on more elaborate schemes resulting in more frustration and failure.

Consider our experience from the Vietnam War. We had vast advantages in technology, armaments, firepower, and logistics but could not defeat a determined enemy using simple tools and solutions to combat us. Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has some similar qualities. Our solution? Use drones that cost millions of dollars to shoot missiles that cost thousands of dollars each to destroy mud huts and kill people who make less than a dollar a day.

Americans, in particular, are apt to fall into this trap. We have two flaws that make this outcome probable. One, we often believe we have the solution to whatever the problem is. All that needs to happen is for others to get out of our way and let us show how wonderful we are. The second is our twisted belief that acquiring great wealth bestows knowledge and wisdom providing an almost god-like adoration by the envious masses.  

On another front, the pontifications of the billionaire elite are received almost as gospel. Their pronouncements receive plenty of attention from the press and electronic media. They are experts because they are rich. They are listened to even when what they propose or write is balderdash. The Gates Foundation has funded geoengineering schemes to address climate change and global warming while speaking against measures to discourage and halt the use of fossil fuels. Jeff Bezos wants to build cylinder habitats in space to move humans off-planet. It might be a useful idea in the future for us to learn how to create sustainable environments in outer space. First, we need to learn how to live sustainably within the habitat we know as earth. If we fail here, what happens there will not matter. Elon Musk plans to send people, not himself naturally, to Mars without us having the technologies and capabilities to support such an endeavor. It would be a one-way death trip for whoever signs up to bolster an over-sized ego.

No entity on earth spends more money developing increasing numbers of sophisticated equipment, gadgets, and weapons than the U.S. Department of Defense. Our nation’s treasure is pouring into this wealth devouring creation in ever-increasing amounts. The benefits versus the costs are rarely or never asked. Like the coyote cartoon, we believe spending more brings more benefits and solves problems.

The scheming coyote never sees or suspects the glaring error of its approach. Despite its intelligence and skill, the canine never sees or suspects the mistake. It is incapable of sitting down and re-conceptualizing and redefining the problem. Men often have the same difficulty. We believe more information or more resources, more equipment or more of everything will solve the problem—whatever it is. However, adding more only serves to lock us more deeply in the same approach to problem-solving. Albert Einstein said it best, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” His words define insanity.

In other words, the solution to a problem is most often not achieved by applying more of anything! The answer is found in approaching our problems differently, to see them from new perspectives and angles. Solving twenty-first Century problems beginning with climate change and global warming will not be accomplished locked into our current mode of thinking and problem-solving. Solutions will be determined by how effectively we can teach ourselves to see our problems in new ways. We need to reopen the doors of our minds and let in new approaches and ideas. In doing this, we move beyond merely acquiring more information and more knowledge toward applying wisdom.

Also available at Jerrymlawson.medium.com

What We Value Often Misses What Is Valuable

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Mr. Jenks was old, with short-cropped gray hair, thick black-rimmed glasses, and wore a bow tie with a wrinkled blue-gray suit nearly his own age. He sat to the right of the front of the class under a small window on a rocking chair that reclined into a horizontal position when he leaned back. His classroom was in the basement of the junior high that was once the high school. It was next to the gym that added a bit of noise and the smell of sweat. The school was built in the late 19th century, and Mr. Jenks’s classroom was a cramped and stuffy little room with one small window. The basement was converted to use when a growing enrollment forced school officials to use every bit of space in the old building.

It was here, in seventh-grade science, I was introduced to the idea there are two kinds of people. Mr. Jenks told us that our world was made up of philosophers who ‘created’ knowledge and technicians who applied it. Obviously, this simplified view of humanity left out most, but he did so to help us grasp a point.

Had Mr. Jenks used a more inclusive description, he might have noted that somewhere between one and five percent are responsible for basic research. This research is focused on ideas and postulating theories about the Universe and everything in it. That would be followed by perhaps 10–15 percent who take these ideas and turn them into useful things. These are people who understand the science and knowledge being generated by the 1–5 percent. These are Mr. Jenks’ philosophers and technicians. What about the rest of us? We simply use the things thought about and created by the first two groups. Some may have a vague understanding of what the first two groups are doing, but most of us simply plug in and flip the switch to make whatever it is work. We have no idea how it works and would not have a clue how to build one.

According to Mr. Jenks, the data consuming technician spends his or her day shaping the environment by taking theories and turning them into useful things we need.

The philosopher, on the other hand, was referred to as a whittler, who might spend the entire day by the pond comfortably hidden in the shade of a tall arching birch, fish pole by his side while he shaped a block of wood. Whittlers never seemed to be doing anything and never seemed to produce anything useful like automobiles, computers, iPads, smartphones, or other things. Still, these woodcarvers were seen as vital because through their thoughts and quiet reflection came the big ideas, the discovery of gravity, penicillin, and others, that moved and shaped our civilization. Whittlers were the thinkers, and thinkers must have the time to sit in apparent idleness.

Most of us, lacking understanding of the role played by such thinkers, see them and their activities as wasteful and unnecessary. They are quick to seek to eliminate funding for such activities and employment. The sciences always come to mind, but the arts and humanities are often lumped in this category as unnecessary and unproductive as well.

Another bias we have in America is our condescension and disrespect for labors we see as menial and not requiring crucial skills. The garbage man, delivery jobs, clerical positions, those who stock shelves in stores, janitors, and others in similar jobs are considered undeserving of our respect and dignity. Consider what our society judges to be useful work. We attach the least value to those tasks that are most entropic. That is, we consider simple tasks that must be repeated over and over every day or several times a day as being of little value. So, someone who sweeps floors at ABC High Tech Enterprises, or operates the grill cooking hamburgers for Burger-By-The-Dozen, are paid little and held in low esteem. Their repetitive tasks require little higher thinking, having less value. We overlook that Albert Einstein postulated his theory of relativity while employed as a simple patent clerk.

On the other hand, someone who is a corporate CEO, or someone who excels at throwing and hitting a baseball, is more highly revered, regarded, and rewarded. Our culture assigns their tasks higher values. Their jobs are judged to be more complex and requiring more skills than the simple sweeping of the floor, cooking a hamburger, and providing vital services such as collecting and disposing of our garbage.

American values are distorted by the false importance we accord to the acquisition of wealth and material objects. We attach great importance to making computers, counting money, or those thinking or physical activities requiring skill. We fail to see that these very same characteristics can impede progress in advancing the human spirit or discovering new knowledge, like relativity, necessary to advancing civilization.

In Eastern thought and in the practices of some monastic Christian groups the functions held to be most important are the tasks we judge of least value. These spiritual groups consider these mundane and repetitive jobs crucial in opening our minds. When you study Taoism, Zen Buddhism, or monastic groups in Christianity, you encounter individuals doing the cleaning, cooking, gardening, or some equally unpretentious undertaking. The reason for their doing these tasks soon becomes apparent. It is held only through recurring labors of the lowest value do we see the greatest truth.

Often it is by being engaged in so-called menial tasks that we can discover the most profound truths. It is easy to forget that Albert Einstein was working as a simple patent clerk when he postulated the Theory of Relativity. Through the performance of simple duties, we often see and perceive the cycles of life and the wholeness of the creator.

To see the greatest truth, one must frequently engage in the smallest chore. The whittler sculpts the wood, the Zen recruits sweep the floor, and the whole cosmos dances before their eyes as the mating ritual of fireflies on a new summer evening — a dazzling display of pulsing light announcing a location for the consummation of life.

One choice in life necessarily leads to the sacrificing of others. The whittler gives up the opportunity to make useful objects and the possibility of collecting handsome rewards for his labor. His motivation is the desire for understanding. His reward is seeing his efforts will lead to even more useful things for others. The whittler sits at the pond’s edge idly slicing his wood, aware of the fishing pole at his side. If he is fortunate, he may also catch a fish before his wood becomes a pile of shavings.

As Mr. Jenks shared this with us, a hint of a smile appeared as he leaned back and reclined on his rocker.

See also on Medium: Jerrymlawson.medium.com