November 4, 2013 at 2:06 P.M. The latest bogus site posted by New Jersey government officials attached to my name concerns something called "Instant Checkmate." I have never been arrested or charged with a crime. Any allegations to the contrary would be fascinating to me. I will be happy to post a link to any bogus site making such a claim. I am told that there is no New Jersey Consumer Affairs "Final Order" against me dating from 1996. I am not a Communist. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
Scott Shane, "No Morsel Too Miniscule For All-Consuming N.S.A.; From Spying on Leader of U.N. to Tracking Drug Deals, an Ethos of 'Why Not?'," The New York Times, November 3, 2013, p. A1. (The NSA is spying, among others, on Vatican priests to determine the Pope's schedule. Efforts to spy on the Pope's boss have not yet proved successful. The NSA sounds like New Jersey's OAE. "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
Charlie Savage, Claire Miller & Nicole Perlroth, "N.S.A. Said to Tap Google and Yahoo Abroad," The New York Times, October 31, 2013, p. B1. ("Business Day.") (This may explain my trouble at "blogger.")
Samin Segupta, "No U.S. Action, So States Move On Privacy Law: Voter Support Grows," The New York Times, October 31, 2013, p. A1. (Efforts to rescue some fragments of privacy for the "Ordinary Joes" appear doomed -- or absurd -- in light of new revelations of spying at home and abroad.)
Mark Mazetti & David E. Sanger, "Tap On Merkel Provides Peek at Vast Spy Net," The New York Times, October 31, 2013, p. A1. (Reactions among Germans, French persons, Brazilians and Spaniards -- among others -- have been much more intense than anyone anticipated. Calls on Britain's Prime Minister to halt assistance for U.S. spying on UK citizens are growing.)
Natalie O'Neill, "Tart Reform: Juris-Prudes Lay Down the Law," New York Post, October 26, 2013, p. 1. (Memo at elite law firm advises young female associates not to show cleavage -- unless it helps with a jury. Keep your "inner-slut" in check, except when you get an advantage with a judge or adversary by being a whore. Ms. Guardagno? Legal ethics? What about male sluts and cleavage?)
Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Evil (London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2010), p. 182. (Conformity and evil.)
Tamor Lewin, "Interest Fading in Humanities, Colleges Worry," The New York Times, October 31, 2013, p. A1.
As I pondered the revelations on today's broadcast of "Democracy Now," focusing on drones and the killing of civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, I found it difficult to reconcile the ostensible traditional values of U.S. society with these military actions. ("Manifesto For the Unfinished American Revolution" and "A Commencement Address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham-Clinton.")
Part of the legal difficulty in the drone controversy concerns not only the military use of these weapons, but also the "civilian" (C.I.A.) use of drones in non-combatant countries, such as Pakistan, where there is no international legal precedent whatsoever for (or against) such quasi-military activity.
Civilian use of drones is a legal black hole making such weapons even more of a violation of international law. Legally, it is exactly the same as the Post Office or Division of Motor Vehicles dropping a bomb when the C.I.A. uses a drone weapon anywhere.
I also found it puzzling that government spokespersons and journalists -- as foreign critics often point out! -- seem incapable of grasping the moral reality in this situation or the human significance of events that are mostly ignored by America's so-called corporate or corporate/entertainment "news" media.
We are killing innocent and helpless people for no good reason.
It is a truism of American politics that if something is not reported in The New York Times, CBS, ABC/Disney or Time/Warner (a monolithic media/entertainment "power" that serves as an echo chamber for something called "The American Consensus" on key issues), then the unreported issue or event simply has not occurred, or does not exist, politically. Hence, there is no need to worry about it.
This probably explains the pressure on American journalists to ignore my situation. Bishop Berkeley would be proud of such a conclusion. Bob Menendez is hoping that I will be ignored precisely so that he will not have to face the music. Good luck, Bob. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
The horror or evil in maiming or killing innocent persons, their faces frozen in a mask of pain at death, again, does not register with people, not even when the victims are children or old people. This horror cannot penetrate the national consciousness because of trivializing dismissals ("yuk, yuk, yuk!") or a kind of chosen blindness to what we become when we, as a people, commit atrocities then ignore and deny having done so. We have to make ourselves stupid in order to live with such crimes. ("America's Drone Murders" and "Little Brown Men Are Only Objects For Us.")
A laugh-track or hideous hyena-like chuckle accompanies our television broadcasts ("The Colbert Report") even in describing the most deplorable human tragedies. Much of the answer to this issue of callousness may simply be convenience: Self-deception on a societal level allows us to think of ourselves (as, admittedly, other countries do too) always as the good guys, bulwarks of freedom and justice in a world filled with tyranny. ("What is Memory?" and "Can you lie to yourself?" then "On Bullshit.")
This national heroism is sometimes true. Much of American foreign policy is motivated by arguably moral concerns among others. It is also true that ideology prevents us from seeing that, like all great powers in history, we are responsible for great evil in the world. ("American Doctors and Torture" and "American Lawyers in the Torture Debate.")
Discussions of such evils, of deaths caused directly by drones, bombings, warfare, and even more deaths caused by sanctions (Iran, Iraq) or embargos (Cuba) that deny innocent people -- old, sick, or very young people -- food and medicine, is sanitized because it is conveyed in abstract policy-wonk double-talk that focuses on "the big picture" as opposed to the individual human beings who are suffering and dying. These abstract terms seem unsuitable to the stomach-churning crimes at issue today. ("The Wanderer and His Shadow" and "Zero Dark Thirty.")
America's obsession with consumption, technology and science in educational institutions and in our everyday lives at the expense of the arts and humanities have led not only to the much-noted decline in American civilization, but also to making all of us less good than we should be. ("Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
All of the statistics compiled by social scientists suggest that Americans are more selfish, cruel, shallow and, proudly, insensitive to the needs and sufferings of others than we have been in previous decades.
Is this greed and selfishness symbolized by OUR waistlines? Perhaps.
A recent study observed a group of six persons compare two lines on a blackboard to determine which was the longer of the two. When five of the six persons were told to say that the shorter line was really the longer of the two, the single dissenter quickly agreed with the majority in a startling display of the power of conformity established in Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments. Juries may also bear out this research: "People want to be told what to believe." ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Far worse than this servility was observed by persons focusing on political uses for these tendencies. Perhaps this research helps to explain why the U.S. Congress is rarely filled with "Profiles in Courage."
We are less honest and ethical, Mr. Rabner, obsessed with power and privilege. This transformation has coincided with the decline in religious commitments and, more surprisingly, with a decline in humanities education. ("What did you know, Mr. Rabner, and when did you know it?")
Hypocrisy is on the rise. We are more willing to judge others, especially other nations -- nations that often regard these American judgments on human rights issues or ethics, for example, as laughably absurd coming from a Superpower roundly condemned this week by U.N. Human Rights Reports on the drone policy and continuing tortures at Guantanamo. ("Mr. Putin's Advice to America.")
As I write these words new protests in Iran and much of Europe (depicted on BBC and RT News this morning) are a response to "America's hypocrisies."
A one million person march across Europe by persons wearing masks from "V-For-Vendetta" is taking place as Americans cast their votes on "Super-Tuesday." Will America heed calls to stop spying on our allies? I doubt it.
Americans are accused of "disdain for the rights of others" and "dishonesty" as Edward Snowden becomes an international hero for "speaking truth to power." No wonder they want to assassinate me. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Is Senator Menendez 'For' Human Rights?")
Antiamericanism has not vanished, but continues to increase well beyond the Middle East, even as Al Qaeda establishes a foothold in Africa and Latin America, Europe and Asia -- the latter two continents are now united by an "underground and underwater" railroad from Turkey to Russia, and points East. Lord Byron would not need to swim the Bosphorous today since he could easily purchase a railroad ticket for the necessary crossing in Istanbul:
"Some 45 percent of the faculty members in Stanford's main undergraduate division are clustered in the humanities -- but only 15 percent of the students [wish to study these subjects.]"
Economic conditions and decline in respect for the importance and achievements of humanists have contributed to sharp reductions in education in the humanities. Efforts to explain the importance of these subjects and the loss to our culture from their continuing decline have met with little success:
"Edinboro [sic.] University of Pennsylvania announced that it was closing its [unpopular] degree programs in German, philosophy, and world languages and culture."
I often find persons in Manhattan playing games or texting on their I-Phones as they are walking on crowded sidewalks. Persons bump into one another -- or miss their stops on subway rides -- not because of a failure of technology, but because they are not looking at where they are going. Illiteracy in The New York Times is routine and no longer surprising to readers.
As a society we are doing much the same: We are not bothering to see where we are going with our wonderful technology. We are obsessed with weapons, science, technology (American medicine and law are rightly criticized for similar failings), but we are frequently inattentive to a drift towards greater cruelty and more inhumanity, loss of values that cannot be supplied by science, as we fail to appreciate the moral implications of our military actions and frequent failures to act in the interest of humanity. ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")
" ... 'Oh, you're interested in the humanities? You'll never get a job.' ..."
Students in the Times article are quoted making such statements with no sense of irony. These are America's YOUNG people today. Aside from whether you will be employed or how good a job you'll get, there is the issue of whether you will be an educated or aware person, let alone a good or happy and fulfilled person, someone concerned with the well-being of those you love as well as all others, not just yourself. ("Richard A. Posner On Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")
Your values must come from your own reasoning and interpretations, but these reasonings will have to be strong enough to resist the pressures to conform to sometimes questionable societal choices and mores, regarding gender or racism, for example, or the life-options for anyone or everyone. ("Is there a gay marriage right?" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" then "New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit.")
To resist the hypocrisies and contradictions that surround us, I suggest, informed reflections on choices will always benefit from the wisdom and lessons in our best art and philosophy. The humanities are always, primarily, about your humanity. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince" and "Whatever!" then "What is Education For?")
" ... the study of the humanities offers skills that will help [students] sort out values, conflicting issues and fundamental philosophical questions, said Leon Botstein, the president [sic.] of Bard College."
