Sunday, January 11, 2015

National Service in the right context


As I have said many times within various other social discussions, woe be to those who allow themselves to become too separated from that which sustains them. And it was this contention that I was reminded of by the Daily Breast article linked below.

The last time I made this reference, in fact, was from another, recent, web piece on the growing trust divide between police forces and the policed. 

The real problem here is that we are not allowed to be fully involved in what our national needs ought to be. As such it becomes quite difficult to answer the question "service to what exactly?"

Not surprisingly, given my bias, I see the primary issue here being one of our nation's inability to properly prioritize within a host of competing priorities. And whether people realize it or not, the problem is compounded by the fact that we have moved well past the point where "Crises Triage" should have been implemented. 

Very little of this can be addressed adequately, however, precisely because the power structure in today's American runs within the play of the money game. Which is to say the game of information control; as in accumulating it, restricting is distribution, and using its translative power only in as much as it allows for the net gain of various, limited centers of self interest.

Thus do we see government bound up in the play of these interests who's goals, beyond their own needs to accumulate more than the other guys, are quite often at cross purposes. And the only other thing  they have in common is that ordinary working people are not meant to rule themselves. They certainly need as many trappings, and as much lip service, as can be managed to allow them to think that they are in charge, but that is all.

The only way people are going to be able to be certain they have a real voice in determining what our national interests are is to stop playing the money game. We need to realize that applied information has made human skill as a commodity a complete absurdity, and thus, Capitalism quite obsolete. As such an alternative is mandatory.

I have outlined what I think is a good starting point for the debate on what that alternative ought to be. I won't go into all of those details here. What I will do, however, is to point out that one part of what I have proposed is mandatory national service. A commitment that all of the City States of a new Republic would have to agree to. I did this because I believe national service ought to be an important part of the socialization process of any society; not only because of the need to share the load of securing our nation, but also for the opportunity to instill a sense of collective connection, as well as the laudable goals of discipline, honor and a sense of duty to the thoughtful, loving social structure one has been brought up in.

If we are truly allowed to govern ourselves, as well as to be intimately involved in the management, and maintenance, of our productive processes, we will have the ability to know exactly how to answer the question "In Service to what exactly." National Service in that context will come to mean something quite profound.

#CapitalismIsObsolete

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