Here are a few of the BIG lies used to support the status quo. What we need, rather urgently, is a counter-narrative
LIE 1. The earth is an open system with infinite supplies and sinks;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Earth is a closed system, changes that used to take 10,000 years now take three, humanity is “peaking” the entire system.
LIE 2. Everything must be monetized;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Money is an exchange unit and an information unit; in the absence of holistic analytics and “true cost” transparency, mony is actually a toxic means of concentrating wealth and depriving communities of their own resources (e.g. land).
LIE 3. The extreme unregulated free market is the only option for a modern economy;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Information asymmetries and “rule by secrecy” have been clearly documented–the free market is neither free nor fair. A modern economy needs to be transparent, resilient, and hence rooted in the local.
LIE 4. Centralized organization is the only and best option – the network begins in the center and radiates out;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Epoch A top-down hierarchical “leadership” has proven itself to be a failure regardless of its ideology (feudalism, fascism, communism, religious dictatorship). Diversity is the source of agile innovation and Epoch B leadership is inherently collective, bottom-up, multicultural, and replete with integrity.
LIE 5. Spectrum is a scarce and finite resource best managed by what we knew in the 1920s and 30s;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Open Everything is “root,” and the tri-fecta for sustainable human evolution is Open Spectrum, Open Source Software, and Open Data Access (foundation for Open Source Intelligence).
LIE 6. Houses need furnaces;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Buckminster Fuller, among many others, has demonstrated that housing can be created that is self-sufficient in terms of energy, cooling and heating, and even water cachement and waste disposal.
LIE 7. Power is best generated in mega power plants located far away with correspondingly large distribution networks;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: WIRED Magazine was outlined how a two-way energy grid that leverages renewable energy across all localities, is vastly superior to centralized systems that “bleed” 50% of the energy while going downstream.
LIE 8. Copyright must last longer than a life time and patents must last longer than 17 years;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Both copyright and patent laws have been manipulated by individuals who have lost their integrity. Their use to keep useful knowledge from the marketplace has been especially harmful. The Founding Fathers got it right in the first place. Creative Commons copyright, and “use it or lose it” patent protocols, are best.
LIE 9. America has nothing to envy in others: we have the best healthcare, the best education, the best broadband, the best life style;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: An educated citizenry is a Nation's best defense (Thomas Jefferson). The US is now a Third World nation for all practical purposes, with a 10% “elite” that has concentrated wealth and a 90% “animal class” that is losing its housing, its health, its clean water, its entire quality of life.
LIE 10. Corporations are people;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Corporations exist on the basis of public charters. Public charters are being granted and managed by government officials who take direction from politicians who have sacrificed their integrity and fail to represent the public interest.
LIE 11. Inconvenient costs and truths may be treated as externalities that do not need to be carried on our ‘books';
POSSIBLE TRUTH: In the absence of an educated citizenry, the public perception of “truth” can be easily manipulated–fog facts, missing information, lost history, manufacturing consent, propaganda, and most recently, weapons of mass deception–there is no counter-weight to “power” that wishes to lie.
LIE 12. More of the same old same old will get us new and better results in plenty of time to avoid environmental disruption;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Among intelligent people with integrity, “doing the right thing” instead of doing the wrong thing righter, is clearly beneficial to all. Medard Gabel, among others, has clearly documented that we can create a prosperous world at peace for one third of what we now allow to be spent on war and waste. Pollution is a waste product, an indicator of an inefficient process. Those who persist in defending any status quo are certainly lacking in intelligence (decision-support) and more often than not, also lacking in integrity.
LIE 13: Tax cuts and trickle down economics work and create good paying jobs.
TRUTH: Tax cuts favor the 1% who have already concentrated most of the wealth in the USA, and they invest their unearned gains overseas or in assets that appreciate, not in job in the USA.
etc.
Essential Tenets for Maintaining our Common Good
Ben Franklin’s Strategic Narrative: Honest & Open
De-Programming the “American Hologram”
Journal: Death to the Big Wasteful Grid, Life Energy is LOCAL
