Ken Watts's blog

LAST TIME WE looked at the first major event in human history—our separation from other apes: the period in which we became human.

That division, the event which separated humans from our animal cousins, can be partially described, in modern categories, like this:

Ape culture had been a dictatorship, where the wealth and power was concentrated at the top, and those at the top coerced everyone further down the line into obedience to their whims.

Human culture broke free of that pattern.

We established a society of shared power and freedom and wealth, where people cared for each other, respected each other, and granted each other autonomy.

But that doesn't mean there weren't still freeloaders and bullies around. [read more]

IN OUR ATTEMPT to find the proper perspective on a whole variety of current events, we've been examining the first, and biggest event in human history.

That was the event which made us human—which separated us from our animal cousins, the apes.

Last time, we spotted two political differences between humans and apes:

1. Human society is naturally democratic, while ape society is naturally dictatorial.
2. Human society is naturally free, while ape society is naturally hierarchical and authoritarian.

The modern equivalent of human society, politically, would be a democracy—like America, Canada, the European Union, India, South Africa, or Australia.

The modern equivalent of ape societies, in terms of political structure, would be the former Monarchy in England, the former Soviet Union, States like Egypt, until recently, in which a "state of emergency" has been in effect for years allowing those in power to enforce a hierarchical government, or Afghanistan under the Taliban.

But every society has an economic system as well as a political system.

How do humans compare apes on that score? [read more]

OUR TRADITIONAL HUMAN life-style, for hundreds of thousands of years, is that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

The last mere twelve thousand or so years, which we refer to as "history", are something of an anomaly—a point that I'll get to later, not now.

(Except to say that I will not be suggesting we should return to hunter-gathering.)

Our ancestors, living out the traditional human values, did not have constitutions, or police, or elected officials, so in one way it would be accurate to say that they didn't have a political system at all, in the sense that we would mean that now.

But it's clearly possible to view their lives through our lenses—to ask which of the competing modern political systems is most like what they did have.

Did they have a dictatorship, for example, or a democracy?

How did they go about making group decisions?

For the most part they used consensus. [read more]

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND any event without the appropriate context.

For example, some current events:

• The nuclear crisis in Japan, and the current propaganda in the United States concerning the safety and wisdom of nuclear energy.
• The recent revolts, both peaceful and violent, in the middle east, and the tactics of the regimes involved against their own people, including violence and deception.
• The parallel revolts in many states in the U.S. over laws designed to kill unions, and the tactics of the state governors and legislatures against them—including deception, and (in one case at least) the consideration of violence.
• The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (Citizens United) giving corporations free run to buy elections with unlimited campaign spending, and the current case (McComish v. Bennett) which could make it impossible for campaign finance laws to level the campaign playing field with public money.
• The Bush tax cuts for the richest in the country, GE's $0 tax bill, and the tax breaks given to the wealthy by those same states when they are claiming to be broke.
• The current recession, and the financial crisis which led up to it.

Some context:

All of these events, and a slew of others, make a lot more sense if we put them in a much longer perspective.

A much, much, longer perspective. [read more]

A FEW WEEKS AGO John Stewart chastised Democratic Representative Steve Cohen for likening the repeated Republican lie that health care reform was a "government takeover" to the "Big Lie" strategy of Goebbels.

Stewart's point was that because the Nazis did such horrible things there could be no analogy between them and Republicans.

I posted a reply (to both Stewart and Rachel Maddow) in which I made the mistake of assuming that Stewart's difficulty was due to a knee-jerk attitude toward Nazi Germany.

I now think I overestimated him—because about two weeks ago he made almost the same claim about similarities between Wisconsin and Egypt.

His real problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of analogy.

After showing a series of clips where the protests in Egypt and Wisconsin were compared, he commented: [read more]

IT'S INTERESTING TO NOTE that the week after Wisconsin Republicans railroaded a bill through their legislature destroying the rights of middle class workers they were in Washington collecting funding from big corporations.

Scott Walker has touted his approach in Wisconsin as a game plan for other states with Republican majorities, but in fact it's the same old bait-and-switch that's already being played out across the country, and in Congress, at the national level.

1. Get elected by false promises to the middle class, using the advantage of the deep pockets of your backers.
2. Use the power to give money to the super-wealthy, either as tax breaks or corporate welfare, paying back the people who funded your campaign.
3. Use the budget crisis created by the giveaways as an excuse to screw the middle class—fulfilling the agenda of the people who paid for your campaign.

The tactics that were used in Wisconsin are from the same game book they've been using in Washington for the last thirty years.

Remember Ronald Reagan? [read more]

YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL what the right-wing is secretly up to by paying attention to where they attack liberals.

If a Newt Gingrich expresses outrage at Clinton's sexual behavior you can be sure he's having an affair himself.

If a Peter T. King commences McCarthy-like hearings on Islamic terrorism, you can be sure he supported terrorists in Ireland.

If a Larry Craig takes repeated legislative stands against gays...

You get the idea.

So I should have realized, about a month ago, what has become completely clear in the time since.

I posted about the repeated complaints from "conservative" pundits that liberals constantly invoke (and thereby "incite") "class warfare".

I pointed out two things: [read more]

MY FATHER DIED peacefully early last Saturday morning.

Those who have read the daily mull for some years may remember his memoirs of a childhood spent in a small town in Iowa. (You can find them here.)

The following obituary, composed by my brother, captures him perfectly:

Robert Wallace Watts died at Ave Maria Village in Jamestown, ND, on February 26th, 2011. Robert was born on October 15th, 1923, in Barnes City, Iowa, to Kenneth Watts and Bertha Elizabeth Watts (Wallace).

He was the oldest of three sons. When Robert was one year old, the family moved to New Sharon, Iowa.