Children

Although they are only learning, children tend to be the best at power plays.

I suppose if you were raised by parents who spent most of their time negotiating with you to do what they wanted you to do, you would learn power well. And that is what parents do.

If you want to learn about the basics of power, watch children. They are not very good at masking their efforts. The power dynamics they implement are often transparent. But it is truely a basic course in power.

They are very aware of what they want. They pursue what they want knowing your role in attaining it. They also know your needs. They know the buttons to push.

Right now my son wants to go out and play soccer. I am trying to write.

Although I use my authority and say, "Go out and play." He keeps coming back in. He knows that he is getting to me. He knows that I want to be a good Dad. He doesn't have to just keep asking me. He doesn't have to disturb me.

He just has to say, "Dad, don't you want to play with your son?"

Now I'm cooked. My son knows more about power than me.....

See you later.

Rights and Power

This is huge.

However it is complicated. Like multiple- step power dynamics in which the needs and dynamics are complex and competing, the idea of rights are protected by a web of power dynamics.

There are those who define rights as something given and protected by a government. We are somehow beholding to our governors as they have the ability to determmine what our rights will be from time to time. This is the underlying premise in the present versions of anti-terrorist legislation. This inherently means that a right is something given and therefore can, in particular circumstances, be taken away.

There are others who believe that a right is something one possesses from birth, by virtue of their birth, and flows from natural law or god's law. Like hair color, or height, like fingers and toes, it is an attribute of being human. From the moment of birth we have rights. More importantly, they believe that from the moment of birth their value as a human being is equal to any one else's. And that value and right are to be protected by all.

How can one claim to have a right if they are unwilling to protect the rights of others? How can something be a right if it is not a right to all? If it is not an entitlement of all, then it is simply a priviledge. And priviledges come and go. They are subject to the will of others.

Rights are rights and they have nothing to do with government.

Rights are therefore inalienable. You can never loose them. And certainly no other human being has the power to say whether or not you are entitled to your's. Simply they can not be taken away. Unless you let them. And the only reason you would let them is becusase you have a need they can help you with. That is power.

Oh, we have many reasons to think it is acceptable to take them away. Today we justify that infringement on the basis of protection.

That's what the king of England said when people wanted rights in the new world. "I need to tax you to take care of you. So you need to be subject to my will though I am across the ocean."

Paternalistic. Patronizing. And just plain false.

So a group of american settlers said - "No."

A war was fought. People died. Freedom won.

And those great humble souls wrote a document to ensure that this would never happen again.

Now the leaders of that nation are being paternalistic, patronizing and false.

Those rights are being taken away on the premise that somehow they were given.

The first real land of freedom and rights is the place where they are being taken away.

Enough people agree because they have been scared. Fear. The requirement of survival is a powerful need to tap into. It is very motivating. And those who can use it by having mechanisms to help or hinder it ( like armies, police, jails and courts) are able to exert a significant degree of control, influence and seduction.

They will point at people like me and say I am the reason we can't properly protect the people. I am trying to protect rights and remove power. But they want their power. They want to control you. There is a bigger picture here most people don't see. This is because they have successfully triggered the need and offered a mechanism.

They refuse to ask why we are being threatened. Until that question is asked and answered honestly, there will be the steady erosion of rights here in the land of the free.

To control the questions being asked is a significant mechanism. Information is the ultimate mechanism. For whatever we do, we do it for reasons. The ability to reason is based on information. False information will change what you do. It will change what you think you should do.

We are threatened because we have intruded into the rights of others in other lands. They do not want our culture any more than we want theirs.

But we want their markets because there is more money to be made. We want their resources because that is how we make money. Those with money want more money. It is another incredible mechanism of power. It can be used to control influence and seduce. People love power.

Money buys advertising. Advertising controls information. Information is what we use to cast a vote. Those who have the money can get those who want votes, to do anything. They need more money. They need foreign markets and resources to get it. They need votes and those with money can use that ability to influence to gain the votes.

Needs and abilities. This is the core of power. This is how power comes to life.

You have a right to truth. You have a right to be governed as little as posible. You have the right to act, think and speak as you see fit. And you have the right and responsibility to make sure everyone enjoys that right.

We have empowered government. They are entrusted to protect our rights. We gave them the authority. Authority is nothing but power by consent. We need to have people to protect our rights. We need people to make rules for our way of life so we might all get along in a safe predictable environment. We need this. So we give the ability to elected officials.

This is a mammoth duty. A duty that people should see as intimidating and onerous. One people should be afraid of.

However, they see it as an opportunity. They see it as something to pursue. Our culture, though founded in the protection of rights, has turned into nothing more than the pursuit of power. No longer is it the pursuit of happiness for all. In fact, we think we can take peoples' god given rights away to make sure some of us get to have our happiness in whatever way we want.

Rights are a good reason to create government. It is a good idea to make it their duty to protect them. We need that task cared for. Never did we intend for government - power by consent - to conceive that they had the ability to take rights away.

We are no longer the land of the free. But will we be the home of the brave? Will we stand up and say a right is a right. Hey you governors - you are just men who want to take those rights away. I don't care why you think you can take them away. I don't care that you can force this on me. There have been evil rulers before. There will be again. We must stand up to people like you. I have learned this lesson before - the hard way.

We are not another version of the Roman, Greek, or Chinese empires. We are the people who believe in rights as god given. We are the people you may call names and try to marginalize. We are the people you may harrass. But we are the people who won't go away. We didn't go away in 1776. We aren't going away today.

I am not liberal, conservative, communist or anarchist. I am a freedom-ist. I believe in the rights we have from birth. I believe power is the only true threat to freedom and our rights as humans.

We gave you the power to take care of our needs. If you are going to use those needs as a means to lie to us, manipulate us, control us, then you do not deserve the power we gave you.

Needs and abilities.

We still need them to take care of our rights. They still need us to cooperate and do as we are told.

Needs and abilties. We have power too.

Rights and Power

tomorrow...

Depowerment II

It's been a while. Sorry.

Check this out.

Ipsos Reid Polls are always fun. They show attitudes useful to business. But sometimes they show attitudes useful to understanding power.

This one in particular.

A Public Opinion Survey Of Canadians And Americans About China
An Ipsos-Reid Report Prepared For The Canada Institute of the Washington D.C. based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars And The Toronto Based Canada Institute on North American Issues (CHINA)
June 10, 2005

Anxiety about China?s emergence as a superpower is unsettling to many in North America. Fifty-four percent of Americans and 40% of Canadians agree ?the emergence of China as a superpower is a threat to world peace?. And most Americans (54%) and many Canadians (45%) are concerned about the level of Chinese investment in their country.


Funny how when we are the ones with the power, we seem to think that corruption is a myth. But see power shifting into the hands of others and we start to question the morality of the powerful.

It is when you are subject to power, that you can understand it.

How does it feel to know that about 1/3 of the worlds population is about to enter the free market?

We have kept them at bay for 60 years.

We complained that they would not participate in our world market place. We told them they were bad. They were godless. They were evil. We told them that were not welcome at the table. We told everyone that because they refused to come to the market with the rest of the world that we should fear them. Now that they want to come to our party, we are told that we should fear them.

There is nothing to fear. Except that we will no longer be the biggest kid on the block.

Hmmm...The power of information. Who is spreading these lies?

They already supply more goods into the marketplace than any other manufacturer. They already account for a significant portion of the world's labor. If you shop at Walmart - and I know you do - you already have dozens, if not hundreds of goods in your home made in China.

We have been partnering in business with them for more than 25 years.

However, we have been buying from them. And if they start to buy, they will not be buying from us. They will be buying from themselves. And that means that the value of their cheap labor and starving markets, will remain in China to benefit the Chinese people. And we don't like that.

The power comes from need.

Ten years ago, China needed money. More than a billion people. Huge government costs. Health care alone was bankrupting them. The only way that money would come was if Americans used their incredibly cheap labor. And the North American CEO's thought it was great. And they used it. China allowed changes in their communism to facilitate American business exploitation. So we jumped all over it. We were happy to have cheaper goods.

All the while knowing that eventually the flow would change. All the while knowing that when enough of the money flowed into China the people would start to buy goods. All the while knowing that by moving manufacturing to China we were changing the market forever. All the while knowing that they had to make their wealth soon because once the flow shifted, we would be in trouble.

Greedy? Short-sighted? Sure, most power users are greedy and short-sighted.

We used their need to satisfy our need. Profits were dwindling. We needed to increase profitability to combat the rising cost of North American labor. We were at a time that saw large corporations having to face the law. Having to face the power of the labor unions. No more cheap labor. No more exploitation on the basis of race or gender. A day's work was worth a day's pay.

Moreover, unless taxes decreased the people would have no money to spend. We had to cut government and pay more. Even then, foreign markets were growing and we were shrinking.

In truth, we needed them. All power dynamics are bipolar in nature. You just need to look for the needs and abilities and you can see how it works. They needed money. We needed cheaper labor.

Now we have created a business model that requires Asian labor. We have created unsustainable markets. We need their labor. Our need has not gone away.

However, now they don't need our money. Nor do they need our products. The fact is, we are afraid that they don't need us at all. If they don't need us, they have the power.

In the past, when people haven't needed us any more, we have used our army to remind them that we are in charge.

Not long ago the oil of the middle east created enough money that they could say to us, "We don't need your money anymore. We don't want your culture or your interference. And if you want our oil you will pay."

Prior to their wealth, they needed our money. We needed their oil.

Now they don't need our money and we need their oil more than ever. They have the power because we have the most pressing need.

We were lucky however. We had the richest and best equipped army in the history of the world. So we went and took the oil. Their need for survival and peace was greater. We took power.

China is no Iraq. China is no little country. They have quite an army. They have the ability to win at war.

So now, for the first time in a century, we are scared. And we should be. We have been a manipulative bully for too long.

Power destroys trust. We have used power for a century. We have destroyed almost all the trust anyone ever had for us.

Power dynamics never end. Once we have no trust there is nothing left but power.

So we are scared. Bloody scared. Whether we can articulate power dynamics or not, we innately know them and understand them. We know when they are coming. We know that these coming power dynamics won't be so easily won. If fact we may lose. We are afraid that all we have left is power and it will be inadequate.

We should be afraid. We should all be afraid. In the past when North American businessmen are about to lose power (and their money) they send young men to war. And this is a war we will lose.

Is this going to end in war?

We still have depowerment.

Would we need our army in the middle east if we took the 150 Billion Dollars we spent on that never ending war on the development of renewable power sources like wind and sun?

We could have depowered the countries of the middle east by taking control of our own needs. By eliminating our need for oil we could have eliminated the need for a war. They would have no power because they would have no ability we needed. Their only mechanism - oil - would become impotent.

But we chose war.

Now, as we sit in fear of the inevitable domination of the world marketplace by China, do we have to consider war and manipulation or can we depower our needs and find a new way?

Compassion

Power and Compassion are related ways of interacting with people. They come from the same place. They are sisters of the same mother. They are related by being opposite ends of one great continuum.

I have spent so much of my life fascinated with the way people control and influence each other. My question has been the same...Why? Why do we do it? Why are we so determined? Why do we even want to?

Call it my upbringing or my ethic or my over-moralist mindset - but to me with the ability to influence people comes the responsibility to take care of them. If you are going to have an impact on the way someone acts, or the choices that they make in their life, you have a responsibility to be sure that your use of control, influence or seduction is done with more than your own best interests in mind.

When you think about that, it sounds more than a little naive and maybe even crazy. After all power is about getting what you want.

I am not sure why I think that way. Although I do not think I am unique in this, I do believe this way of seeing power and responsibility is not as common as it might be. I think most people seeking power of one kind or another, do so with the desire to rise above others and satisfy some twisted need that, to them, represents happiness.

I think all people are on a constant quest toward happiness. It is the singular thing which drives us all. It is just that some people have some pretty weird ways of being happy. And for many of those, when they get what they want, they realize it didn't make them happy. As a result of the inadequate, fleeting or evasive feelings of happiness, they wonder what to do next. So they do more of the same hoping that it was not a question of what to do but of how much of it to do.

It's just a yearning for happiness.

We are all the same. We look different. We talk different. We act, eat, sleep, walk, choose and dream different. But notwithstanding all the differences in everything we think, say and do, we are still pointed at that same quest for happiness. We are all the same.

Power is a quest for happiness using others' needs to get what we want. Compassion is the quest for happiness believing in the oneness of us all.

To use power - to exploit others' needs - is the pursuit of the self. It is the raising of the individual. It is the focus on the uniqueness and supremacy of ourselves as individuals. It is happiness at the expense of others.

Compassion is the acceptance that we are all the same and together we will reach happiness or none of us will. It is seeing the need of another person not as a tool for self gratification but as the link between us, the common ground we experience, the common trait that makes us one. Compassion is using our ability to satisfy their need not a a means to an end but as an end it itself.

Power is an attempt at happiness for one. Compassion is a acceptance of happiness for all.

I believe that when we release power from our methods of seeking happiness and replace it with compassion we will evolve forever as a species.

That is my belief.

So if everyone knew how to use power, wouldn't we be forced to consider new ways? If everyone knew how power worked, wouldn't we be forced to acknowledge its corrupt nature? If everyone were to see this connection between power and compassion wouldn't we start to be truly happy?

Good Power?

There are those who pursue power because they say they can use it for good.

Some say good things happen when good people use power for a good reason.

I think it is important to understand authority properly before you can say if power is good or bad.

Authority is power by consent. It is still power. It is still about Needs. It is still a way for people to fulfill Needs in the great social nature of human existence.

We are a social beast. We fall out of another human being and if they don’t pick us up, we die. From the instant we are born we are constantly interacting with other humans to have our basic requirements of life satisfied. We need each other. We need each other for so much more than food and security. We need each other because this life we take is meant to be our human experience. Humans are not meant to live alone.

But to live together we need rules. We need agreements and conventions. We need predictability and consistency. Without the rules of social interaction we are unable to accomplish the great things. So we create authority.

Let’s not talk about politics. It just gets us confused. Let’s skip political power just for today. Let’s talk about something easy.

As a social beast we need a lot of things other than government. We need language to have knowledge. We need knowledge to have technology. We need technology to enjoy the lifestyle we live. These needs will create conventions and rules we are happy to submit to. They offer nothing but possibilities of hope and prosperity.

Of course knowledge can be abused and manipulated as a mechanism of power. But like everything we need, it is available to be used for power.

To get knowledge you must be a tax payer in our society to go school and use our libraries. We see nothing wrong with such institutions. They are a reflection of the best intentions of people. They are the best of authority.

However authority, like any mechanism of power can used for good and bad.

We would all agree to have a library. It is a worthwhile institution. It is a benefit to a society. Boy, Ben Franklin was a smart guy with a cool idea.

We know that to be able to have it, we would submit to the rules of the library. After all you can’t have a thousand books just floating around. We need to organize them and keep track of them so everyone can use them.

Of course to submit to the rules of the library is to submit to the authority of the librarian.

If she acts inappropriately, we will remove her from the position and take the authority away. We can replace her and then once again be happy to submit to the authority of a new librarian. After all, we want the books and the knowledge in them.

This is power by consent. The librarian gets her power from the agreement of the people to let her be in charge of the books. Her authority comes from the people. In this case, we would say this is good power. It keeps the books organized and keeps people from hurting our collective knowledge base. We see her power to levy fines and revoke privileges as a good use of power because we need someone to take care of the books. She uses our need for a library. Applies her authority to organize and protect. She gets compliance from us and we take our books back on time.

Power by consent- authority. What makes it good is that we have agreed to submit to it. What makes it good is that the authority is not being abused for her own purposes.

Nonetheless it is the exploitation of a need. And that is what power is.

When authority is taken or imposed there is no consent. When authority is abused for personal gain, we call it corruption. We might call this the abuse of power. We might call it bad power.

But then what is power for, except to get what we want?

What did we think would happen when we give people the authority to use power?

How many times do you have to be told? – Power corrupts.

Power and corruption are twin sisters. They are the same use of power by consent. However we like one and hate the other.

Good power is authority given with true well-meaning and informed consent. Everything else is corruption.