The Boonyaratglin Solution

The Shining Path leads to Yangon.

Skip Sievert is holiding out for a military coup d'etat as a path toward establishing the United Technates of America. Today, I caught him writing:

The military is thinking of doing some other things to him right now.
I believe Bush is looking over his shoulder and is very nervous .
Could he become the first president of the U.S. to be deposed.?
I hope so.
This guy deserves way more than impeachment.
How about a bloodless coup.?
It will never come to that you say.?
How can we trust those other politicians that are known flunkies for the corporations to do the right thing.?
They are like Bush in that they do not actually care about the American people.
Just who is buttering their bread.

Can Bush go on for another two years.? I doubt it.
If the politicians won`t remove him, the military may.

I would call this the General Sonthi Boonyaratglin solution. It worked in Thailand. Except they promise a restoration of constitional rule within one year - a problem for Sievert.

Most Americans, and I hope all of the American military, would view a military coup in the United States as a worse extra-constitutional solution than the unconstitutional neocon cancer of Rove and Bush and Cheney.

But, if he gets impatient waiting, Skip could always immigrate From Thailand to Burma or Myanmar which is the locus of the most stable and oldest of military dictatorships. Skip's Technates might have a go, there in Yangon.

Utopia & Utopian Thinking

Thanks, Wikipedia for this definition of Utopia:

Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to the human efforts to create a better, or perhaps perfect society. Ideas which could be/are considered able to radically change our world are often called utopian ideas.

"Utopian" in a negative meaning is used to discredit ideas as too advanced, too optimistic or unrealistic, impossible to realize. Hence, for example, the use by Marxists, of such expressions as "utopian socialism".

It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society. Although some authors have described their utopias in detail, and with an effort to show a level of practicality, the term "utopia" has come to be applied to notions that are too optimistic and idealistic for practical application.

International Goals of the United Technates of America

S. Sievert says:

Some in our groups are more militant than others. We think there is a possibility that the military may rescue the country one day perhaps, from the politicians.

Can we begin to imagine what might become our foreign policy goals in the Middle East once we are the United Technates of America?

Environmentalism & Technocracy?

Here is one of the most significant things I have heard Skip Sievert say in my short association with him:

...A price system which is what we have depends on perpetual growth. We believe when the oil runs out soon, or some other thing happens, our growth society will fail, as it should. To much destruction for no other reason than to make money. That is chasing a mirage. A dead end that leads to resource destruction, and our own destruction for no really good reason except to make money. . . .

However, regarding peak oil, global warming, and other environmental issues, there is this criticism (found in Tikkun) of technocratic approaches and how unpalatable and politically unappealing they are for the American people:

Democrats too often turn immediately to technocratic proposals to address climate change—proposals like capping carbon emissions, trading greenhouse gas credits, and increasing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. These are certainly worthwhile initiatives, yet without locating them within a larger value system, they epitomize what authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus call a type of “policy literalism” that often proves unpalatable and uninspiring to the American public. They also perpetuate stereotypes of Democrats as advocates of burdensome regulations and proponents of “big government” (no matter how Orwellian these phrases have become these days).

Couching climate change in the dry language of technocracy narrows the range of sensibilities that people use to relate to public issues and thus undermines the ability of Democrats to fashion a coherent climate change policy grounded fundamentally in moral vision.

Howard Scott?

Enemy Of The Bourgeoisie

It's interesting, perhaps revealing that Howard Scott's own preferred epithet was Enemy Of The Bourgeoisie. William Sheridan casts doubt as to humankind's willingness to submit to some bureaucrat or bureaucracy's vison of efficient living. It doesn't sound democratic. As a matter of fact it sounds like Technates could only be established through force and maintained through a dictatorship:

Scott's plan was an engineering masterpiece as well as a paragon of responsible environmental management. But it was not congenial to business and political elites, and it was advanced far beyond what the average mentality could comprehend or accept. Scott advocated that people adapt to the requirements of the machine, but most people couldn't get too enthusiastic about that prospect. His plan was first publicized over 60 years ago, but the public seems no more ready to adopt anything like that now than they were then.

But there is an even deeper problem with Scott's plan than a lack of public enthusiasm. As Marshall McLuhan has only recently shown us [Laws of Media], technology has four types of effects on us, and the most troubling of these is the Reversal Effect. What the Reversal Effect shows, is that even a worthwhile innovation (like the concept of efficiency) can be over-used, with the result that the original benefits are eventually offset by accumulating detriments. To his close collaborators, Scott conceded that the implementation of his plan would amount to "a dictatorship of science". Science however, cannot provide the social or personal values upon which either social solidarity or personal fulfillment depend, yet without these attributes no culture can survive.

Practical Question

Here's an article

Why Should I Believe It?
(or)
Eleven Reasons Technocracy Works

Interestingly it's author is the Communist Robot.

The author talks about certain economic conditions prevailing in his utopian "Technates", but shares no information as to how technates are established.

That is to say, how do you get there from here?

Sievert intimates you get there through over throwing liberal democratic constitutions, which is novel thought. Actually, not so much as a novel thought as an unenlightened one: people have been having revolutionary day dreams for several centuries now, without much progress in the betterment of society.

Assuming this utopia is worth the trip - a big assumption - there's got to be a path, right?

Historical Question

Skip says:

Technocracy was the fastest growing social movement of the mid-1930's -why haven't you ever heard of it?

Well, it was a movement in the 30's; I'm not sure it was all that dynamite of a movement. From what I can tell, it sounds like a totalitarian option between communism and fascism.

But if it were such a dynamo in the 30's, why did it a squelched? What stopped it?

In the Beginning . . .

Skip Sievert says, in Technocracy that the Technocracy movement in North America

has to do with: changing over from a price system which uses money, to an energy debit system, which uses something real, and not an abstract concept to measure things. Technocracy is a philosophical, cultural concept which uses science as a means of creating a different kind of society. The aim of Technocracy is to remove the current price system method. Our present form of government is thereby removed. No more politicians, No more economic system with its roots in the class or caste system. Instead of buying some thing you would use your energy debit card which you have as a right of citizenship. This type of society is based on a secular humanistic approach. Would it be nice if the motivation in our society was not money which measures nothing except an abstract concept called debt ? What do you think ? People in this society always opt for more money, hence almost all choices are based on the false value of the concept of money.~`! What would it be like if technology was freed from the profit motive ? What would it be like if education was not factored using money as a condition. Environmental clean up would not cost any thing if things were not measured in what our society calls money. Money as stated earlier is an abstract concept. -The amount of energy it takes to create a consumer product would be the new way of accounting in a Technate. Change the societal template and society changes. In effect -- change the rules of the game - and the players change their approach in a dramatic way. As we become closer and closer to a societal collapse , I would encourage all and every one to take a look at the real alternative, Technocracy. Are we doomed in the present system ? Yes. Is there hope with a system that is based on the concepts of Technocracy ? Yes. Explore Technocracy. . . .