Humanity needs an intervention
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by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Nov. 24, 2006
I am discouraged at times by the inflexibility of the vast majority
of people I speak with, right, left or indifferent, over the issue of
who is really in charge of our nation,
of what is driving world
events in general. Everyone has candidates, but no-one can
comprehensively defend their choice on the basis of available facts.
I am sympathetic with their plight.
My position on the subject offers
no solace, much less any sense of certainty or resolution on the
question, and therefore seems to offer no hope for restorative
change. I am perfectly aware of the seeming contrariness of my
approach.
You see, my analysis of the situation leads me to believe that it is
impossible, given our current system, to discern who, if in fact
anyone, is actually in charge.
It seems evident to me that all candidates for role of prime mover
that we can see, that we hear about in the "news" or are otherwise
brought up for discussion as the actual decision makers, are patently
not in control of external events. What I see is a crowd of hand
puppets that display no evidence of independent action animated by
hidden hands that make even less sense.
Furthermore, based on the
growing mass of incoherent, self-contradic-
tory, and self-defeating
actions being put forward by those allegedly "in
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"More than any other time in history, man-
kind faces a crossroads. One
path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total
extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
Woody Allen,
American actor, comedian, & director
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charge," it also seems
that there is an absence of any coherent logic or
discipline of purpose that one would expect to see as an effect if
there was actually some cabal acting in concert to determine events.
Rather than appealing to the need to see pattern and order, a need
that I experience as much as anyone else does, I am forced to
conclude that what we observe is just increasingly incoherent
activity with no central aim. I see a world system that is decaying
into a self destructive spiral fueled by irrational impulses.
This is not to deny that centers of power exist or that they are not
growing more concentrated and potent. It is rather to observe that
this centralization of power is a result, rather than a cause, of the
manic lunacy of our time that masquerades as enlightened self
interest.
What we observe as the apparent expression of a will to
power and domination is really more akin to the relentless conviction
and delusional certainty that one sees in the floridly ill paranoid
schizophrenic.
It is hard for me to credit as "powerful" that which is
so committed to self destruction. In fact, all that passes for institutional commitment to establishing
"a new world order" is much more readily understood as grand theater
meant to hide the underlying dissolution of order.
There are amazing parallels with prior moments in history when grand
designs
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So here we are, once again, and so soon after our prior experience in mass insanity, slipping off the rim of the cesspool into the shit.
In light of this existential quagmire it is no wonder that so many seek to pin the responsibility on someone, or some group of someones, rather than face the reality of our descent into mass madness.
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of conquest and domination were launched with apparent sane
intent only to be exposed by time as fits of mass insanity.
Increasingly we hear of parallels with late Republican Rome (which
was no longer either Roman or a republic) that can now be seen as a
long descent into decay, depravity and despair dressed up in Imperial
finery.
More recent and more compelling parallels exist with the
periods just prior to the first two world wars (history, if it is
written at all, will likely see our current time as the commencement
of World War III). During those times, as now, patently irrational
motives were embraced by ostensible leaders of powerful states who
blamed their actions on inevitability and destiny rather than on
rational choice.
Now, as then, the salient reality was that the
system of human relations was in an advanced state of failure that no
one could take responsibility for, much less do any thing about. Any
parsing of the language of intent spoken at these times results in a
realization that self destruction was the actual motive, be it an
unconscious one, rather than the acclaimed motives of self assertion
and domination.
So here we are, once again, and so soon after our prior experience in
mass insanity, slipping off the rim of the cesspool into the shit.
In light of this existential quagmire it is no wonder that so many
seek to pin the responsibility on someone, or some group of someones,
rather than face the reality of our descent into mass madness.
I am not a conspiracy denier either. Any examination of known facts
leads any active mind to detect a florid, exuberant, massively
abundant excrescence of a multitude of conspiracies, large and small,
meaningless and portentous. It is just rather that I see all this
activity as consistent with the mad impulses of similarly insane
individuals and groups rather than as evidence of some kind of
coherent set of competing plans.
The continued existence of the human species as well as countless
other species now hangs in the balance. Will we recover a semblance
of sanity and survive, or will we continue our current path to self
immolation?
So what is the rational response to this situation? If the machine
is in the process of tearing itself apart and threatening our
continued existence as a species, it seems logical to me to simply
pull the plug, metaphorically speaking that is. But also literally.
We need to cut off the power. The machine is running amok in an
insatiable hunger for more power. We need to starve the beast.
If the values and designs of industrial civilization are leading us
off a cliff, it would seem to make sense to adopt a diametrically
opposed set of values and designs as an aid to getting us out of
trouble. All around us are the whispers of this philosophy. Small
is beautiful. Localize. Decrease the footprint. Pull the plug.
Wealth is bad. Dignified poverty (such as is exemplified in Kerala,
for instance) is good. Accumulation is bad. Divestment good.
Higher status bad. Down classing good. Surfeit is bad. Sufficiency
good. Centralized bad. Localized good. And so forth.
I suggest that we might make some progress toward an unlikely
positive outcome of humanity's current crisis, if we adopt an
attitude of scorn for those who cling to the consumptive values that
got us in this mess. Those who seek greater wealth and power need to
be seen as suffering from a dangerous mental illness. They need to
be confronted. We need to do an intervention.
This is not an unprecedented approach. People are routinely
ridiculed by the dominant society for choosing common sense
approaches to happiness and sustainability. The Amish come to mind --
they are not worried about the increasing price of gas. In the
seventeenth century this philosophy was most coherently promoted by
the Diggers. The Luddites in the nineteenth century promoted a similar view -- and have
been the particular target of libelous treatment in current
historical sources that so slavishly serve monied masters intent on
amassing great wealth through poisonous technological innovation.
Anthropology and archeology provide massive evidence of successful
cultures that eschewed technological solutions that could alienate
their people from their natural environment. The most common sense
and sustainable approach to culture rests on the maxim:
Do not fuck
with the life support system.
So the doctor recommends that we aspire not to aspire and, just
maybe, our species might get out of this predicament alive.
© by the author.
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Previous articles by Dr Ruhs:
Fight for the rudder
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Newspaper lies on page one. I know. I was there.
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Meditations on the coming collapse
by Herb Ruhs, MD
This is how civil wars begin
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The Secret Police may be
watching you so don't think,
act or believe like a free person
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The end is at hand
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When spinach becomes a matter of life and death
by Herb Ruhs, MD
And now for something completely different
by Herb Ruhs, MD
We are all prisoners on home supervision
by Herb Ruhs, MD
There is no war but class war
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Meanwhile, back on Lifeboat Earth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Is anyone willing to
think about America’s
dismal health statistics?
by Herb Ruhs, MD
A plague of criminals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
On facing adversity with courage and good humor
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Bush's death toll will vastly exceed Hitler's
by Herb Ruhs, MD
An unemployed physician
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Who "Them" are:
You can't tell
the players without a scorecard
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Global warming passes the point of no return
by Herb Ruhs, MD
In case you wondered
why your doctor would
sell you down the river
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Time to pull the rip cord
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Can the President legally
crush a child's testicles?
His lawyer says, "It depends..."
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The great American misunderstanding
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When death is the proper penalty
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The revolution this time
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The good tidings and the bad
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Health care in America: An ongoing, massive con game
by Paul Krugman,
The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
Competition: Destroyer of character
by Herb Ruhs, MD
America without the myths
by Herb Ruhs, MD,
To dream the impossible dream
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Refusing to see the obvious
by Maureen Dowd,
The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
What can we do? Rhetorically speaking, that is.
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Banned in Cloverdale, by Herb Ruhs, MD
All of us are being fatally poisoned
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Daubert is the most
influential Supreme Court
ruling you've never heard of
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Enough already
by Herb Ruhs, MD
War is sometimes justified, often not, but always insane
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The bad news is the same as the good news
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Trying to control your emotions "can make you pretty stupid"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The masquerade of "civilization"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Face these horrors with acceptance, equanimity, humor
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Doctors, medicine, hospitals, and the rest of the story
by Herb Ruhs, MD
System of privilege expands in scope and overall power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why the little-known news is the most important
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Big pharma
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The genius fish and other comments
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Childhood abuse and
the role it plays in
maintaining coercive power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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