THE HIVE MIND RULES!

Two articles grabbed my attention this morning, both in the Washington Post. I have posted each in my Archive:

• From John Edwards, lessons on celebrity and politics
• Davos: What's the point?

Both speak loudly of our culture, more loudly about our decision making and mind-think!

Government is a product of evolution formed over time and from time to time, by man, making a choice to come out of the cave and live with others. Its purpose is balance. The intent is to find equilibrium between man’s individual needs and group needs.

Man’s first need is to care for him/herself. This demands complete freedom. That freedom starts to erode as man finds love, lives with those that he/she love, reproduces and soon is in family.

Man also learns quickly to be in the cave, alone, self sufficient, this is not enough. There is a primeval need to venture out. He/She needs to live with others. This involves his/her relinquishing even more individual freedom in order to gain benefits provided by being of a group.

The relinquishment of this freedom is balanced by the assurance that the action of the group will do no more than serve the common good. When forthrightly serving the common good the needs of the group supersede the needs of the individual. The means to accomplish this end we form a government of what ever serves and fits the group.

This is the basic primer on civics for the day.

Looking at its application and fulfillment of our needs in this day and for whatever our future may require I ask: What are thewe needs? Where will they be satisfied in the best most responsible way?

Applying this to myself: What I can’t do I need to seek elsewhere. My first source: My loved ones. Will that be enough? Unfortunately: Nope! Where else do I go?

And there lies the Rub!!!

Our only resource beyond our own is charity, religious, benevolent, cooperative resources is Government.

There lies the second Rub!!!

The Government has lost its way. It is not capable of providing for its initial purpose, that is, to care for us when there is no other competent source to do the job.

I AM A MIDDLE CLASS AMERICAN WHO HAS SAVED FOR THE RETIREMENT OF MY WIFE AND ME AND CANNOT AFFORD TO HAVE THE ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE (AD) THAT I DO. IF I REQUIRE HOME CARE, ASSISTED LIVING CARE OR NURSING HOME CARE AS IT NOW EXISTS THE ESTATE OF MY WIFE AND ME IS AT RISK OF BEING DRAINED HAVING TO PAY FOR THE CARE LEAVING NOT ENOUGH FOR THE SURVIVOR OF US TO CONTINUE LIVING IN RETIREMENT UNABLE TO WORK FOR A LIVING.

There was the poor house, there was Old Age Assistance; There was the County, Grants in Aid, and, oh yes, once there was Welfare! NOW THERE IS NOT! What’s left is subsidized housing if any there be and good quality dog food. This is Senior Life in the Fast Lane!

I haven’t researched available welfare in 2010; there might be something for seniors finding themselves drained and without. Of course if I am in the Home once all of our money is gone I can then qualify for Government Assistance so I can die in a bed, but what does my spouse do when the money is gone and she is does not qualify for The Home.

Don’t look to Government, they can’t, they won’t, they can’t get it together. Need I say more than look what happened to Health Care?

There are a lot of reasons for why government can’t when it should and there is probably no other that can and will do it.

We are led by leaders who have qualified on platforms the same as Edward’s, that platform of gossamer that carried him so far, even dangerously close. How can this happen in this age of more information than we know what to do with.

Davos is the metaphor of our style of management and decision making. The first of the snippets about Davis is written by David Rothkoph, the author of the insightful book The Superclass which is worth everyone’s read. In it he talks about Davos, what it is, who is there and what they do. In the article part today in the Post he talks about the quality of it all. That part is pretty scary!

It is scary because it succinctly identifies the overall problem.

What is the problem? HIVE MIND!

Too often, at all levels of the groups in which we function our individual creativity has no place, our individual judgment has no acceptance, decisions are made by whoever is in charge and ekes down to all, unspoken, non the less told in that method known as : “That’s the Way We Do Things!”

We learn it in high school and earlier. Having learned “The Way” we take a step beyond what we have sensibly given away to successfully come out of the cave. We have ceded our individual decision making to a blind trust in the decisions of the group, of the HIIVE.

The decision makers for our group are whoever become the coolest in the ranks. How do they become the coolest? Appearance! What they appear to be based on a multitude of factors not any of them necessarily associated with how smart they are, what good judgment they have, what commitment to the common good they profess. It is the ones the fit in the best, liked the best, and everyone says they are the best. This makes them the best.

That is Davos, that is Edwards, that is all of it folks. Republicans aren’t thinking, they are adhering to party dictate. Democrats are wussing, afraid that if they take a stand they won’t get re-elected. Then there is Obama. He sure looked good. Is he????