UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

“Uneven development” is a term often employed in Zen practice to remind students that someone who is gifted in one aspect of development does not mean that they are reliable in all others. A great chess genius may not be skillful at resolving marital conflicts. A gifted surgeon may have anger issues. Intelligence is not a universal skill. I mention this because of the extraordinarily dangerous moment we have arrived in this morning.

Yesterday on MSNBC news a fellow named Danny Citrinowicz, a 25 year member of Israeli intelligence and ultimately the head of the Research and Development branch of the IDF responsible for assessing Iran’s strategic intentions, particularly on nuclear issues. Mr. Citrinowicz, was discussing Trump’s ultimatum to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz by this afternoon. Citronowicz pointed out that the blow-back of such an escalation by Trump would create a failed State in Iran. No water purification, no social order, anarchy, chaos, rage and fear in the heart of the Middle-East and the Iranians have vowed retaliatory attacks on all energy production of American bases and desalinization plants of their neighbors.

He pointed out as well that Iran will be unwilling to compromise after having their Supreme leader and his family assassinated; the second attack by the US during negotiations. They will want compensation for damages, they will not budge on their sovereign right to enrich uranium to generate power, but as Israeli’s intelligence official pointed out, they will now aim directly toward producing a nuclear weapon as the only feasible defense against attack. They have observed that the US does not threaten North Korea or Pakistan because they have nukes. Russia has nukes. (and Trump probably fears that Putin could and would kill him if he wanted to.) So, since destroying Obama’s Treaty with Iran that would have guaranteed they would not have a nuke, the Trump/Hegseth poseur tough guy cult has placed us squarely in an incredibly dangerous no-win box with most exits sealed.

How is this related to uneven development? America’s political system selects for people who are skilled and intelligent about raising and/or serving the interests of money. Full stop. They may be dumb as a pile of rocks in other areas of human development, may be boinking their assistants, or enjoying the fruits of trafficked children with Epstein buddies, but if they can amass fortunes, they can win office, have dinner with the President, receive ambassadorships, run agencies that put extraordinary power at their disposal.

And so here we are. 70 million odd people voted for Trump. Say 20% represent the bottom of the human IQ bell-curve. You can’t fix stupid. And politically stupid might still be skilled machinists, farmers, business-folk, good parents, etc. That leaves 55 million, who for one reason or another, convinced themselves that they would do materially better with a convicted fraud and rapist as the country’s chief executive. They calculated taxes would be lower, less red-tape, more opportunities to cash in, show the world that not all Mexican people and African-Americans are enslaved to the Democrats. Whatever. No matter what they thought, it was single issue-thinking. All their intelligence was dedicated to tunnel vision. It’s a field. Trump was rich. We all like money. He’ll make us money. Voting for would be like appointing a skilled pianist as your heart-surgeon because “He’s good with his hands.” Existence is not a tunnel it’s a field.

For many years I’ve gone to the Hopi Bean dances on the Hotevilla reservation. The kachinas represent their gods, and humans who don the costumes are considered god-like in those dances. One year, and then forever after, I noticed a ‘white-man’ kachina. It was a guy in army camouflage, holding a plastic AR-15, but attached to his eyes were two paper-towel cardboard tube centers. It was the perfect expression of “tunnel-vision” as a characteristic of our thinking.

Continually attracting people who are good at raising money or have great fortunes to lead us is becoming a circular firing squad. Our allies in Western European and Scandinavian parliaments have side-stepped our errors by paying for elections out of tax dollars; severely limiting private and corporate donations and lobbyists and having very strict transparency laws. All these governments have a Precautionary Principle where products cannot be released into the public arena before they have proved that they are safe. They do not use their citizens as guinea pigs to see what turns up over time. Estrogen interrupters and micro-plastics are lowering American sperm-counts to nil. Nicotinoid fertilizers and fungicides are eliminating honey-bee populations, mother’s milk is being filled with dioxins and microplastics and our congress, both parties, function as a sluice easing their dissemination into the population.

So here we are. Fealty to wealth and power has pushed us to this critical juncture where we can anticipate terrorist acts in our country from Iran. It has understaffed most Agencies of our government, including air-traffic control which has been understaffed since Ronald Reagan (representing America’s corporate and personal wealth) fired 11,000 aircraft traffic controllers during his first term. 40% of America’s children are food insecure, and we are firing off Patriot missiles like fireworks that cost $2 million dollars each to fight Sahed drones that cost $2,000. The population and the political elites are locked in complete thrall, unable to do anything, because we’ve tacitly accepted and supported a system where our political leaders must always consider and compromise with the demands of money if they are to survive and continue to serve in office. We must break the taboo about discussing the role of money in our politics in a sustained and serious way before we follow the Dodo off the evolutionary edge, or Third World countries trapped in the maelstrom of poverty and disorder.