The WMail Newsletter
Volume II   [Year 2001]   Part 3

Issue #12: "Independence"
[July 2001]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
— attributed to Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"The condition upon which God has given Liberty to Man is eternal vigilance."
— John Philpot Curran (speech July 10, 1790)

"America has become a nation of whiners."
— Dr. Dean Edell

"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"In any compromise between good and evil,
it is only evil that can profit."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without
human life at all; but we cannot have freedom without wilderness."
— Edward Abbey [1927-89]

-----------------------------------
" I N D E P E N D E N C E "
-----------------------------------

        The Declaration of Independence is the best document ever written. It established for all time that the Individual cannot be ruled except by his/her agreement. The independent person is designed by Nature to act in his/her best interest, which is to fulfill on his/her Chosen Purpose in Life.

        You will know that you have such an Individual Purpose when you can state it as a Truth, purely because you said so. The alteration arises in the speaking of your Purpose, that you are for something, rather than in opposition. Speaking what is wrong – with Life, with other people, about things that 'need fixing' – drains off energy to whatever one is opposing. 'Not agreeing' with Objective Reality ties one to the opposition, whatever the issue. Taking a Stand is in itself a purely positive action.
        The only action required to be Independent is to speak that your Purpose is such and such – yes, that Purpose – and that you have chosen that Purpose. You do not need permission from any person to do this, nor from any god-head.

     You can have multiple Purposes; your commitment in each matter determines the Power behind each Purpose, which in turn determines the amount of Power derived from that Purpose.
        The Power of a Purpose builds in the saying, which we can term the 'Said Purpose'. You may not get it right the first time. But the saying of a possible Purpose will provide you with a way of testing what is there. (Be very clear that the 'Little Voice In Your Head' is the wrong audience to speak to.)
        Having spoken your Purpose, it is up to you to listen closely – being eternally vigilant – and adjust in the direction of Truth. If something doesn't quite ring 100% True in the saying of your Chosen Purpose, in your observation of your saying of it, then your job is to locate and address the part that is hollow, that lacks Power. When your adjusted Saying is very, very True, then it will be time to focus on another area.

        When you train yourself to operate mostly from the Purposes that you have chosen freely, for this Life, then you will have become Independent, you will be an Individual in the objectivist and existential sense.

*          *          *          *
        The Independent person does not need input of Power. The Individual is the source of all Power. You increase the amount of Power that others see in you by the increase of Power that you are giving away.
        Being a consumer of Power, of your inherent personal Power, is no fun because you are dependent, a minion of the Culture Structure. The False Mind of the Culture Structure – the omnipresent 'Little Voice' in your head – cannot fathom that the only way to have Power, to generate Power, is to give it away, because that is its design: the Culture Structure must hide from you the Great Secret that it is based upon. You will not be told this Great Secret within the Culture Structure, and most people are so welded into the Culture Structure that, if they hear about it, they cannot comprehend it.

        It's not really a Secret: The shift from the notion that Power supposedly derives from the State – the Culture Structure that rules civilization – to the concept of the Individual as the source of Power, is the precise stand that was the Declaration of Independence in 1776. That shift is all that needs to occur today, in YOUR life: you begin the act of becoming an Individual by taking the existential stand that you ARE an Individual, the Value exists when you arise from your Culture-Structure-fomented stupor and raise your arm in private or public and say, "Durn tootin': I am an Individual, no matter what!"

        That individual existential act, the taking of responsibility for your individual right of Freedom, establishes that you are an Individual, in the face of NOT having been one since you learned to walk (or thereabouts). If you do not say that you are an Individual – if you cannot say that you are – then you probably are not one. Many national cultures contain no sense of individuality, so that the act may require more struggle than, say, Americans and Canadians/Canadiens (and it may not be easy or simple for many of them).
        But the fact remains: The only reason that a person is unable to state that he/she IS an Individual, and thus become one in the saying of it, is because he or she has not done so.
        Move your lips. Say it. If you find yourself resisting, then wonder why you cannot stand up as an Individual, as someone who is declaring oneself as Independent.

        The seldom-read Declaration of Independence was an invented existential Stand for Mankind. I especially like the part at the very end, where the Founding Fathers stated that "[We] mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor". They knew the risk and put everything that each of them had at stake.

        Read the Declaration of Independence – http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration.html – and THEN speak your own Declaration: that you are an Independent Person, that you have a Purpose, as spoken by you, that it is yours and it is True because you spoke it.
     The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and the price of Independence is standing at risk.
     The decision is yours to make; the alternative is benumbed servitude under the Culture-Structure.

[copyright 2001 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

The above essay was reprinted in July 2002 in the following local Mensa newsletters:
"L.A. mentary" of Greater Los Angeles CA Mensa
"SangaMensan" of Sangamon Valley, Illinois
"IlluMinate" of Missouri Ozarks Mensa
"Spirit of 76" of Fort Worth, Texas area Mensa
Which resulted in being asked permission to reprint the essay again,
in American Mensa Ltd.'s "Bulletin" magazine, in the October 2002 issue.

---

==>  For U.S. residents: the Postal Service is raising rates for the second time this year:
        first ounce still 34’, but each additional ounce goes UP to 23’ – EFFECTIVE July First
        FURTHER DETAILS: http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_046.htm#table

==>  For any family & friends who were exposed while in service to
        their country, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has a
        NEW Agent Orange Hotline at 1-800-749-8387, as well as the
        V.H.A. Agent Orange web page at http://www.va.gov/agentorange

==>  "The social contract has been totally violated and shredded – at least the social
        contract as I understood it, which was 'Work hard. Hard work will get you ahead'.
        If that doesn't work, then what's the deal?"  — Barbara Ehrenreich
        (in her new book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America")

==>  Check out the July Fourth launch of eBookWeb, a non-profit site,
        the successor to the defunct Gemstar/eBookNet: already good
        things are happening there at http://www.eBookWeb.org

==>  For another historic Stand for Independence, read the
        "Declaration of Human Rights of Man & of the Citizen"
        which was brought into existence in France in 1789
        http://www.franceway.com/culture/declarat.htm

==>  Looking around Yahoo/Webrings, I discovered that NO webring existed that was
        devoted to Ayn Rand. So now there is one, designed "To connect all the web-pages
        that provide detailed info on XXth Century philosopher Ayn Rand and her fiction
        and non-fiction writings, the basis of Objectivism"
        http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=aynrandwebring

N E X T   M O N T H : "A Third Theory of Relativity (Part 2)"

I N   S E P T E M B E R: "The Best Investment: Labor"

Issue #13: "A Third Theory of Relativity (Part 2)"
[August 2001]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

"The world is its own magic."
— Suzuki Shunryu Daiosho [1904-71]

"It is the basic evasion of the essential which is the problem of man."
— Wilhelm Reich [1897-1957]

"Do Right & Fear Not"
— sign in captain's cabin on museum ship "Star of India" in San Diego CA

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
— Albert Camus [1913-60] (in 'Myth of Sisyphus', 1942)

======================================================================

NOTICE: I happened to discover that the Yahoo/Webring directory included NO Ayn Rand webring,
so I started one in late June; anyone who has an Ayn Rand webpage or website can join by signing up at
http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=aynrandwebring

The stated purpose of the ring is "To connect all the web-pages that provide detailed info on XXth Century philosopher Ayn Rand and her fiction – "Atlas Shrugged", "The Fountainhead" et al – and non-fiction writings, the basis of Objectivism.
(There are other webrings intended for content about Libertarians and about Objectivism.)

=======================================================================

-------------------------------------------------
" A THIRD THEORY of RELATIVITY (Part 2) "
-------------------------------------------------
This essay and Part 1 – see June issue – are each excerpts from
Chapter 35 of my book "Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment".

A LITTLE COSMOLOGY
        Whatever I imagine as The Way That The Universe Works, whatever elements might be objectively True, you will not likely see any corroboration in print, unless you study Quantum Physics and the like. So you are probably seeing these strange ideas here first. This area of Science is a form of science fiction to most people, that is, a fictive construct based on pieces of scientific data as well as imagination. Classic sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, however, made up some stuff in the 1940s and 1950s that was so accurate scientifically – though pure fiction – that the F.B.I. investigated him for possibly breaching National Security on then-top-secret projects. Clarke, merely a very educated civilian, made it up totally, and hush-hush scientists were working on the exact same matters behind supposed walls of tightest security.

        Now I must confess that I listened to Art Bell's radio program – "America's #1 late night talk show" – for a while, while working graveyard shift at Playa Vista. Art Bell is basically an entertainer, and only secondarily a journalist, so I soon perceived his on-air strategy of bringing on several contradictory guests over several shows and seeming to agree with each one. The listeners are left on their own in trying to separate the hype and the wishful and-or paranoid thinking from the rare nuggets of Objective Reality: the data presented disagrees all over the place, but what if some of it is true? And which pieces are Objectively True?
        None of it True? Impossible, I say. Something has been going on, outside the Culture-Structure. Some of the on-air, live calls on Art's radio show are too damn real to deny their content.

*          *          *          *
        One such interesting subject that I heard discussed on Art's show is the difficulty that astrophysicists are encountering of late in pin-pointing the location of Magellan and other probes that are deep into the outer reaches of our little solar system. The old, pure Newtonian formulae do not work, which is a mind-wracking puzzle to those tied to J.P.L. and N.A.S.A. computations.
        How the two-way transmissions from these probes works is that Earth stations send to each probe, the probe captures and time-stamps the transmission, and then the probe transmits back a time-stamped collection of data that was recently – micro-seconds previously – gathered by that probe as it is whizzing past and between the outer planets. But the time-stamp business doesn't work right: part of the transmission occurs as if Newton is exactly right, and part shows the position of the probe itself as being much closer to the Earth.
        Big problem for the scientists, but in order to prevent confusion for the Culture-Structure, this matter has been kept quiet: The scientists just recompute using corrected Newtonian formulae.
        The mathematical conclusion from this problem points to the speed of light – the holy constant of all Relativity – as gradually changing. But of course, this cannot be so, or else Einstein and Planck and all the rest have made serious errors: the formulae would no longer be God's [or Science's] Absolute Truth.
        So the space scientists adjust for their factual findings and blame instrumentation, or solar flares, or 'some unknown factor', but hold steadfastly to the original dogma – and secretly shake their heads and wonder what the hell is going on.

*          *          *          *
        My humble Third Theory of Relativity was formed back in 1982, as part of the design of a science fiction screenplay entitled "Nostalgia". So this particular recent scientific puzzle caught my attention on Art Bell's show immediately, as espoused by several different guests.
        The other piece that fits here is the recent measured increase in solar activity: major changes the like of which have never been observed by [modern] Science.

        So here is how this fits together, and where Science has long innocently been mistaken: Astrophysicists and nuclear physicists have made the mistake of thinking that Space is an Objective constant. Perhaps not so. My Third Theory of Relativity posits that the missing mass of the Universe, the XXX force, that shows up in various computations is accounted for by the various non-standard – dare I say para-normal? – dimensions, which the tri-dimension-bound scientists of the Culture-Structure cannot admit to, nor indeed even perceive of.

        What makes the speed of light variable is the fact – the scientific heresy – that the energy in all of Space is like a fluid! I repeat: like you think of a fluid. Energy exists, whatever it is, and may just move around the Universe like a warm current in the salty oceans of Earth, or like the El Niρo phenomenon. In fact, exactly like El Niρo, whatever is that phenomenon's cause.
        The energy of the Universe may just move around, like weather, wafting its way across the Universe like clouds in the Terran atmosphere, or like the tides & currents of the oceans. One of the possible effects might well be a rise (or drop) in the local speed of light, just as the heat absorbed by El Niρo raises the temperature of the water in the eastern South Pacific Ocean, causing havoc with weather patterns all around this fragile globe. Exactly parallel to how the advent of extra energy in this corner of the Milky Way could raise the activity of Sol, our local star-sun. The increase in pure energy could also alter the effective speed of light.

        Remember that the Holy Biosphere is at most 100 miles thick [give or take] and that the Planet Earth [or Terra] is 8,000 miles in diameter. The solid mass of rock that makes up this Planet is 80 times the diameter of the gaseous and very mobile and very fragile atmosphere, so it doesn't take much to alter normalcy. Just heat the solid rock-and-magma mass of the Terran orb a few degrees and the fragile, gaseous outer surface – the atmosphere and the Holy Biosphere – is globally warmed, with no chance of correction to 'normal'.

        Deep space contains next to Nothing, almost limitless emptiness. While there is less objective matter to transmit such qualities as heat, there is also no barrier to the unobserved transmission of ethereal 'clouds' of energy that just sneak in and alter the conditions of this terribly lonely and isolated backwater corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, this obscure sector of the uncharted Universe.
        Something is going on, but the Culture-Structure is keeping Science itself as well as the general public from having a clue, mis-directing our attention to tabloid sensationalism and Third World war games and the non-event that was the start of the Third Millennium.
        Something is going on. But the Working Mind is more concerned with the Objective Reality that affects us in our daily lives: with those who reap unearned wealth, by ripping off Mankind; with those false leaders who initiate Fear among the masses, asking to lead our young into pseudo-battle against the manufactured 'enemy'; with those who stand up with another Answer From God, the price of which is only giving over to them all of your natural personal Power and financial equity – tax-deductible, of course.
        Mankind's only chance for successful Survival is thru Reason, which may require tossing out sacred notions like the invariability of the speed of light or that obedience to the Culture-Structure will result in anything but the worsening mess in which we find ourselves of late. Everything is open to question, everything can be reconciled thru Reason, Mankind has the capacity – if not always the Will – for the Fulfillment of Mankind's Potential, without which Mankind will soon be extinct.

*          *          *          *
        We are effectively mere passengers in this Universe, and we have no more say in its destination or its direction than a passenger on a wide-bodied jet aircraft has. You think that you know where the craft is headed, but changes may occur without advance notice. You'll never see or talk to the Captain of this craft and who's to say that the voice that you hear over the loudspeaker is really the Captain? We can theorize from our seats, move around a little, even look out the window and guess at our location; but whether we are in First Class or Steerage Class or even one of the Cabin Attendants, the vehicle will reach its destination without our help – or it will not reach it.

        R. Buckminster Fuller wrote a book entitled "Spaceship Earth" to remind us that there is no escape from the vehicle, this blue orb of a craft, that if we pollute this spaceship the entire species Mankind could perish – like that! Remember always that we are all in this together.
        Sit back and work on what you should be doing while on the Journey. Empower your fellow passengers, make their Journey as pleasant as possible. Be nice to the Cabin Attendants; don't complain about every little thing. Enjoy the many channels of entertainment [when your work is done]. Keep the place clean. And keep your personal Meaning and Purpose always in mind.
        There is no way out, not until the Final Landing; and once the craft is landed, you cannot choose a different destination. So develop your Working Mind and Learn to Empower, and will yourself to generate the best ride possible for us all.

        Bon voyage!

Part 1 is posted on the WM website at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2001b.htm#11
while Part 2 is posted right here.

2007 version "A Third Theory of Relativity"

[copyright 2001 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

---

==>  N E W Jack Kerouac pages now up at Maison d'Κtre Coffeehouse:
        many recent publications plus a never-before-published novella!
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/maison/jack.htm

==>  Great bunch of folks actively working to 'empower the individual'
        at the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at http://www.GandhiInstitute.org

==>  R. Buckminster Fuller's book "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth"
        is still in print via Amazon.com  NOTE Aug 2003: No longer true, but available used.

==>  Erika Holzer, who was Ayn Rand's attorney, has built a new website
        that will include an original essay each month, relating personal & public
        events that she participated in with Ayn Rand:
        {essays discontinued; sadly, the site now promotes fascist propaganda}

N E X T   M O N T H: "The Best Investment: Labor"

Issue #14: "The Best Investment: Labor"
[September 2001]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

"The logic of business is coercion, monopoly, and the destruction of the weak,
not 'choice' or 'service' or universal affluence."
— Thomas Frank (in "One Market Under God", 2000)

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"As long as we pursue this materialistic kind of lifestyle where we make money,
and possessions [are] the only ambition in life, we are going to go downhill
and eventually destroy ourselves."
— Dr. Arun Gandhi

"Most of the people say they ... get their news from television. That means they're inadequately informed, too poorly informed to exercise their rights in a democracy. You cannot give people enough information on the nightly news."
— Walter Cronkite [1916-2009] (Writers' Digest Sept 2001)

"The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention."
— Nikola Tesla [1856-1943]

-------------------------------------------------
" T h e    B E S T    I N V E S T M E N T :    L A B O R "
-------------------------------------------------

        The central problem with the Oligarchy is that their collective psychology holds Things to be valuable and People or Individuals to be their enemy. So the Oligarchy is forever at war with the other 99% of the population, the Citizenry that includes you and me. The Economic Class War has always been around, but the Oligarchy rules with unashamed arrogance these days, and it is now time to end this particular war. (Sorry guys: I can only manage one war at a time. Somebody else will have to take on the undeclared war in the Middle East, the religious wars from Ireland to Afghanistan, and the various genocides currently in progress.)

        I'll cut to the chase: Labor and production are the only source of wealth – one of Ayn Rand's basic Objectivist tenets.
        The desired result of this essay is to plant a seed such that Objectivist Reason takes root and spreads, and that eventually the Oligarchy and the Upper Middle Classes are forced to operate inside a practice of paying Individuals legitimate value for their labors, rather than rewarding corporations – which are, of course, primarily owned and run by the Oligarchy. The principle here is to eliminate the middle-men, eliminate their taking a cut, essentially for no 'value added', merely for their temporary possession.
        Take real estate, for example: Instead, of buying mass-produced mansions, the enlightened buyer could hire an architect to design a house and a contractor to build it, who in turn will hire draftspeople and carpenters and roofers and masons and landscapers – no corporate middle-men need be involved, as payment for services moves along person-to-person channels.
        Instead of buying stock, thru brokers whose income derives from passing along pieces of paper, the enlightened investor could buy 49% of a small business concern, giving the original owner a boost in his/her ability to combat the hegemony of the Oligarchy-owned corporate menace. (I will speak out some other time about the Great Stock Market Casino.)

*          *          *          *
        The FLOW of wealth is the key. The Oligarchy can keep everything that they presently own: one percent of the population owns FIFTY PERCENT of everything in America, and yet that is not enough! The members of the Oligarchy and its fellow-traveling Upper Middle Class operate in blind fear of the proletariat, because we outnumber them. Ayn Rand and other Objectivists have reported their strategies of denial and suppression often enough. (I define the Upper Middle Class as the 20% of the population that owns 80% of everything, leaving 80% of the population fighting over a shrinking 20% that 'They' have not yet been able to take away from us.)

        The inept Culture-Structure – the management arm of the Oligarchy – must prevent awareness of the principle that if the 99% of the Citizenry are paid good wages for their productivity, that is, for their labors, then they will use their honestly-earned wealth to build and to improve and, yes, to consume. That without the Oligarchy, life will not only work, but the improvement over the present situation will be incredible.
        We could indeed solve the problem by separating the Oligarchy from the economy completely: Let the Oligarchy keep their present unearned wealth but allow them no more chance to receive further extortive levies derived from the actual labor of the Citizenry. The Oligarchy and the Upper Middle Class could live just fine on unearned income from their bloated principal, while the once-again-free semi-Capitalist economy could simply disregard them.
        BUT: The Oligarchy controls 50% of everything in America, and 'more' cannot happen soon enough. The Oligarchy wants 100% and they want it NOW! – so get out of their way. No vote on this matter will ever be on any ballot.

*          *          *          *
        I wrote about Transactional Analysis for the book "Working Minds", producing so much prose that I had to split it into two chapters. But the gist of Eric Berne's concept of 'Game Theory' is that there are only three roles in a human game, in all of the games that humans play: those roles are Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor. I present T/A in my philosophy because it works very well, it is based in Objective Reason, it can and should be taught to six-year-olds – and because I have added a fourth option.
        You all participate in Game Behavior, virtually every waken moment, not knowing the existence of such. Eric Berne was simply the first to distinguish the details of how Mankind operates. Game Behavior has Mankind entangled in all manner of dis-empowering activity, but without knowing such activity exists, how can one deal with it?
        Once cognizant of game behavior, however, anyone can use Reason to address the problem. The way to stop Game Behavior is to Not Play The Game: this fourth option is to Empower. That is all that need be done.
        By standing out of the Mega Game that is the Economic Class War, you vote for ending that terrible game. (The same principle applies to all other Mega Games perpetuated by the Culture-Structure.)

        To win the Economic Class War, simply Empower by your decisions in earning and spending money. Avoid banks: they make money when you use their services, at 20% APR and above. Forget churning your stocks: invest with the intention to Empower a product or service or Individual or team. Spend instead Time: spend the Time available to you not in consuming, but in dealing directly with Individuals.

        The only occasion that I met billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, he was entering his hideout in Culver City, a Mexican restaurant across the street from M.G.M Studios (which he then owned). This billionaire was savvy enough to obtain complete privacy for his meetings for the price of a couple of bottles of beer. The fact that Kirk does that, and that Warren Buffett drives a pickup truck his own self, says a lot about both men.
        But your typical member of the Upper Middle Class is frightened of the lower classes, as well they should be: The Oligarchy does everything in their usurped power to prevent Individuals from obtaining anything like a Living Wage, devises new ways to thwart the Minimum Wage laws, and spends tax-deductible funds to lobby for reduction in taxes on the rich and on corporations – because they do not yet have it all!
        They fear the power of the Individual, because the only Power is that derived from the Individual.

        So back to the practical: Charge cards are okay in principle, but debit cards are better. Charge accounts are the tool by which Americans, especially, give Power away to the Oligarchy, in trade for toys and pseudo-prestige, which requires further drain on the workers, the Individuals who are the true source of all wealth. The amount of consumer credit owed in modern times is staggering, and that debt is the unconscious motivation for the hustle and cutthroat rivalry that increasingly comprises business activity.
        The bumper sticker is funny: "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go". But the reality is that the debt-beset creditor must 'wheel & deal' and push & shove in order to fulfill on his/her promise to pay off consumer credit accounts, meanwhile making more purchases to prove the hollow accomplishment of moving up the slippery slope of the Economic Game.
        It is like the child's game of musical chairs: the Oligarchy keeps removing wealth until nobody is left in the Game but 'Them'.
        The Oligarchy produces nothing at all; they simply demand payment for your participation in the Economic Game, which the brain-dead Citizenry agrees to because the Culture-Structure provides no alternative. The Oligarchy raises prices arbitrarily, busts unions and closes factories and files bankruptcies, fakes quality control, bribes inspectors and watchdogs, funds 'spin' campaigns, openly donates to corrupt politicians, moves American jobs overseas, and pollutes your environment – and then flies to Fiji or St. Moritz to get away from the deadly mess.

*          *          *          *
        None of this manipulation of wealth can be said to be production of wealth.
        The production of wealth occurs at the human level ONLY! Only an Individual can perform the activity of production. Only an Individual can design the machines that design the machines that stamp out the widgets in 42 colors and a dozen sizes. [Do I sound like Ayn Rand? Gosh, I sure hope so.]
        No corporation produces wealth. Corporations and government departments manage Individuals who must work together in order for any wealth, or value, to be produced. But corporations cannot manage anything unless Individuals perform that task as well!
        Unless people – a stream of Individuals, committed to some common goal – enter the premises of a corporation or government entity, then the production of wealth or value cannot occur. No Individuals, no wealth.

        The people of America, not to mention other parts, are often at each other's throats simply because they don't know any different. The Oligarchy long ago designed fierce competition into the Culture-Structure that we live inside of: The Oligarchy removes a portion of the wealth produced by Individuals and then stands back and lets the destructiveness of competition divert our attention from our innate Individual Power.
        It often seems subtle, and it is indeed a tad more subtle than the animosity between the Arabs and the Israelis (or any other generations-long hatred). But the primary source of stress in modern life is the steady stream of pressure from the all-pervasive Culture-Structure, pressure to perform as a Good Consumer, rather than to be a producer of wealth or value.
        If the Citizenry ever realizes that they are indeed the source of all wealth – none of which they get to keep – then the proverbial apple-cart will be upset indeed.

        Being productive – ignoring or even dis-obeying the Culture-Structure's dictum to consume at all costs – is a heretical act, in that it Empowers. Production of wealth by an Individual empowers the producer along with one's fellow Individuals, which is why Ayn Rand wrote and spoke about Capitalism as the only Reason-based economic ideal. Not being productive, chasing after material reward as one's [False] Purpose In Life, is activity that robs us all of our Natural Power.

        Standing outside the entrenched Game – all the extant Mega Games that constitute our lives at home and at work – is an Act of Will. Such an Individual Act requires only that you choose the fourth option: to Empower. Not Victim, not Rescuer, not Persecutor, but the heretical option of direct, Individual Action that empowers.
        Hand the money in person to the Individual who does the labor. Truly eliminate the middle men.
        Have lunch somewhere that requires you to pay the owner in cash, instead of doing it the Culture-Structure's way, wherein the customer charges the meal and American Express or Visa take their 3% cut off the top, the banks move the money around for days at a time, making a ton of money off the 'float', and a week or two later the restaurant owner receives the reduced payment.
        Give a raise to anybody who does their job completely. Promote any person who has no work backlog. Reward efficiency and innovation, such as thru a suggestion box process. The payback will be increased production.
        Fix things, rather than replacing them – for repair requires labor. At the very least, recycle the materials so that you will not have to purchase new raw materials from mines and wells and farms that are inevitably owned by the Oligarchy.
        Buy art that you admire directly from the artist who produced it. Instead of grabbing mass-produced video entertainment, rented or sold by Oligarchy-owned corporations, seek out live performances. Meet people after such performances and interact in person with Individuals who share your tastes.
        Pay poets to read in public parks and subway stations. Commission public art, the restoration of artistic buildings, and creation of open space in urban ghettoes. Seek out the gasoline station displaying the lowest price. Buy books at an independent bookstore, or even better, directly from the author or publisher.
        All of these activities eliminate corporate involvement and payment for this productivity goes directly to the producer. By removing the Culture-Structure from your activities, you remove another and another chance for 'Them' to extort unearned wealth derived from your productivity.
        You have a hundred choices every day to play the Economic Game per the rules that the Oligarchy thrives on – or you can stand outside the Game and take action to Empower. The Working Mind will be conscious at all times of these and other empowering choices as they arise.

        When you hand a simple dollar bill or coin – the only holy object in all of Objectivism – to the actual producer of the value or service that you purchase, that act of Empowerment, that transaction between yourself and any other Individual, has the potential of overthrowing the Oligarchy and the Culture-Structure, and ending once and for all the Economic Class War.

        Have a happy and empowering Labor Day.

[copyright 2001 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

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==>  Ayn Rand's classic "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" [as mentioned above]
        contains the moral justification for a true Capitalist economy
        http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451147952/nordellbookst-20

        The WM Ayn Rand pages are at http://www.working-minds.com/AynRand.htm

==>  New Nikola Tesla webpages are up now:
        http://www.GENordell.com/stores/maison/Tesla.htm

==>  The U.S. Department of Labor's 'History of Labor Day' page
        http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

==>  The essay "The Distinction Bachelor" from Chapter 22 of "Working Minds"
        sent out as WMail #4 last November, has been published online by the cool folks at
        the Cal State Fullerton Sociology Department's online "Journal of Mundane Behavior":
        go to http://www.mundanebehavior.org/index.htm
        then click on 'Outburst Online!'

        Or visit the WMail Archives at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2000.htm#4

N E X T   M O N T H : "The Priests of Commerce"

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        N E W : You can now obtain an e-version copy of the Preview Edition of "Working Minds" by visiting the WM website ebooks page at http://www.working-minds.com/ebooks.htm
        The Preview Edition can still be requested via the link here:
GENordell@Working-Minds.com - just put "FreePrvwEdition" in the Subject field, and specify your choice of Adobe Acrobat PDF file or Microsoft Reader LIT file or M/S Word DOC file.

==>  Visit and-or bookmark the Working Minds website:
        http://www.working-minds.com     [note the dash!]

==>  Forward this e-mail to anyone who is into philosophy or economics.

==>  Participate in these philosophical webrings:
        http://www.working-minds.com/ringpage.htm
        ..and the N E W Ayn Rand Webring at
        http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=aynrandwebring

==>  Take a look at previous issues at
        http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm

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CONTACT: G.E. Nordell (editor) at GENordell@Working-Minds.com

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