Tag: gaza

MWG

Posted on by josuter

MWG   (“There’s a Man With a Gun over there. . .”by josuter October 2025

These lyrics to a 1967 song by Buffalo Springfield were written during the Vietnam era, just before the violent Democratic Convention and Kent State shootings.  Fear was in the air.   The gun was a symbol of power.  The gun is near the top of the list of inventions that changed the course of history.  Guns can exert force at a distance, overtaking factors of strength and speed as survival mechanisms. 

In the halls of leadership guns have a constant effect on the course of history.  The guard with a sidearm prevents unwanted people from entering the office of the leader.  This is not all bad since it keeps order, but in keeping order, it also keeps out people who have different ideas and unwanted information.  Leaders are not stupid people, yet over time they become ignorant about what they should know.  They receive skewed information on the basis of the selection of people in the room.  This is a weak link in democracy and it favors the good salesman or lobbyist with a bag full of money.  

Guns not only protect the integrity of money and contracts but have been an essential tool of empire building.  Guns, money, and information form the top 3 powers of government.  Other types of power involve more time and organization.  In the short run, guns and money will always attempt to control information too, but this is tricky.  Democracy will not work without good sources of information.  Yet it is obvious that if guns control social structure, who’s in and who’s out, then guns can control ideas and the flow of information.  

Metaphors 

Information comes thru all our senses, but spoken and written languages are basic tools for storing, moving, and manipulating ideas and information.  Metaphors especially are a powerful tool of communication and provide tools for thinking and conveying ideas.  Metaphors and mental models can help or hinder solutions.  They must reflect reality accurately.  A “head of state” is not like the “head” of a human or animal and does not function in the same way.  The better, more accurate metaphor is “Guys with Guns”, since this more accurately reflects the source of power.  

Religion and Political Power 

Powerful stories too must touch reality at some points to be effective.  They cannot be totally fiction.  Gaza has gone awry because of a Story that does not apply.  The age-old conflict between Politics and Religion continues today.  All religions have an internal logic, even if one does not agree with the premise.  Their own internal logic might be used to find a way out of this conundrum by searching for inconsistencies.  Is our God only the God of our small group, or the God of all?  Is our God a living God?  If the answer is ‘yes’ to both of these questions, then the Story can change to find solutions to real problems.  

Even the definition of a word can have a powerful effect on our behavior.  Are the people on the other side “the enemy”?  or are they “the younger sibling?”  Taking this latter position puts us in the role of the older, more responsible sibling, and our behavior is allowed to change.  The words “War” and “Peace” are associated with the Nation-State rather than the “skirmish” of smaller groups.  Conflicts may always be with us if we choose that path.  We have a choice.  In any case, peace is a byproduct of better communication.  

The Emperor’s New Clothes (ENC) and the Dynamics of Fear 

The story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is not a story about ignorance but about fear.  It may be the fear of saying something stupid, or fear of being left out.  It might be fear of looking weak, especially at top levels of power.  In the story of ENC everyone at some level knew the emperor had no clothes, but it was fear that paralyzed them and kept them from saying anything.  This story repeats over and over again today.  It keeps us from responding or asking questions.  We can begin to address this fear by creating structures that provide some cover for people who may want to raise appropriate questions and comments.  

Social Structures Change Information

As with the gun, an intentional and temporary structural change of social groups can change the flow of useful information.  A different Structure and Process (SP) can bring different Questions to the table.  This is true for groups of all size.  As an example, a Select Security Council (SCC) in the United Nations might engage a small number of nations with special veto power as part of their specific SCC, whether it be agriculture, water, education, healthcare, etc.  This would make the UN more effective and responsive. 

Systems and Feedback – We Create our own Filters

Systems need feedback as a source of useful information, both from inside and outside.  Good feedback is required to make a system function properly.  If democracy is to be more than simply a way to divide the spoils, it must have a larger purpose and a way to solve practical problems.  Democracy needs better feedback at many levels.  

Sensors in a system can be quite small and dedicated to the measuring one thing such as temperature, or measuring the concentration of some element.  This information is directed back to a control panel designed to control larger machinery that will correct the balance and direction of the system.  Social feedback in groups is more complex since body language and tone of voice must be considered alongside ideas and information. Sensors in society might be small groups that are structured to find and filter information in a way that will give useful information to decision makers and to other people.  

End of the Nation-State?    Western hegemony can rightly be viewed as an Empire.  The idea of a Nation-State in Europe was adopted in 1648 after an exhaustive 30-year war and ending with the Treaty of Westphalia.  This system was relatively stable for hundreds of years.  Now there is some question about whether the Nation-State is up to the task to carry mankind forward.  Is there adequate feedback to people making important decision makers?  Those who would de-construct the nation-state must show new pathways to address social issues.  This will require a division of labor to handle the information on the many problems that will arise.   

Forming a new political party will take too long to address current problems.  New leaders may become corrupt by the time they come into office.  A faster and more effective way to make change is the formation of feedback loops within a system that has gone awry.  Feedback sensors within social groups can start with a handful of people who use a method to balance their own bias but keep the process moving.  The other factor for large scale change is to use a division-of-labor to divide the most pressing issues among people by their month of birth.  Those in January will have their own selected “special vote” on some issue that is different from those with a February birthday, etc.  Statistically, the outcome will be nearly the same for both large and very large groups on one issue.  Division of labor for information gathering can be done for many issues and will create better filters.  Supranational bodies such as the European Union or the United Nations seem unable to solve critical problems alone.  Maybe do not have the right structure – or they simply lack adequate feedback.  

A Way Ahead:  The Small Group Process (SGP) to Push and Pull from the Outside

Often the way out is not just putting the system in reverse.  The way down the mountain may be to go up and over to another path.  

Like learning to ride a bike or going to school, we were all pushed and pulled by someone else.  We can push and pull other groups uphill toward a future that they can make secure and sustainable.  We are not selling or recruiting but rather challenging the next group.   The small group process (SGP) can be started from the outside starting with a small group and using a PRICE mechanism.  (PRICE= Privacy of team meetings, Randomness in picking team players, Incentive, Competition, and Efficiency).  PRICE can counteract the negative social dynamics described by the ENC story.  The goal is to make the target group safe and sustainable, something that requires better communication at all levels. 

BC=Better Communication (BC) requires work and others may try to sabotage our efforts.  BC Games can be played with people we don’t really like or know.  There must be a goal or discussion question (DQ), and a time limit.  We know that guns and games can both change social interactions, but guns tend to be exclusive, whereas games are inclusive. 

Do we want the Empire to “Collapse” with all the ensuing violence? No, but any pathways of change must show how to address perennial social problems.  It will require a division of labor to find, filter, and move useful information on many issues and many levels.  Rather than the historical Mon-archy or Olig-archy the new structure must have agency at all levels – a “Poly-archy”.

The Small Group Process can re-capture the integrity of democracy by creating information filters, starting with a handful of people.  Their feedback does not start by going to a central government but rather pushing and pulling the next region, the next city, or the next neighborhood to build their own SGP and information filters.  This can even be done internationally, Beyond the Border (BtB).   The focus can be on any issue or it can be used to move the SGP to other locations.  If the goal is to make the next region, city, or neighborhood secure and sustainable, then this SGP may need to include forming their own security if police are absent or dysfunctional.  

Applications of Feedback Mechanisms

It is not enough to simply tell the truth.  We must push truth and Useful information (UI), sometimes with evidence, to decision makers, then use similar methods for follow-up.

Nation-States and their leaders seem unable to extricate themselves from a nuclear weapons buildup.  We must set a goal of zero nuclear weapons and start down that path.  Groups of 3 non-nuclear nations can form “trio sensors” that act as feedback to decision makers (DM) within nuclear nations.  The DM is someone who has their finger on the nuclear button or is close to those button-pushers.  The DM’s (along with their Family, Friends, and Colleagues) must be reminded of this on a monthly basis via letter, email, or phone call.  This monthly reminder can be made into a game and played at any level, between levels, and internationally.  

If leaders are unwilling or unable to listen and act, then the feedback becomes more pointed and intense.  The trio monitors one specific nuclear nation, and if there is imminent threat of nuclear war, or if nuclear weapons have already been used, then the non-nuclear trio will support the use highly accurate missiles to destroy the DM within the nuclear nation.  This can be done even after nuclear weapons are detonated.  This new structure may need to help re-direct a military industry that may or may not yet realize the dead-end of nuclear weapons build-up throughout the world.    

A second use of using the SG Process is creating a robust system of support in an unstable economy.  This cannot be started at the top but could be addressed with SG-type communication to improve local social dynamics in one location, then in a network.  The goal here should be to make the target group able to sustain themselves in the event of a recession, depression, or economic collapse.   

Governments cannot make everyone secure all the time.  We must push other groups to become as self-sufficient as possible.  Demonstrations are a politically acceptable way of pushing up against central powers.  But we must push in all directions.  If leaders don’t listen, SGP’s can be used to start a series of local debates.  It will be important to engage young men and women who otherwise may go off to fight someone else’s battle.  If we are to claw back democracy, we must create better information filters at all levels. 

Is Democracy the Problem?

Posted on by josuter

Is Democracy The Problem?                                                                                             jsuter@sbcglobal.net

Citizens blame leaders.  Leaders blame citizens.  Could it be that the problem is democracy itself?  In an interview by Danny Haiphong with Sean Foo and Richard Wolff, they discuss the inability of US business and investors to know the investing landscape.  If the current politics is unfavorable, investors only need to wait a few more years until another band of merry men and women take over.   This does not bode well for future planning.  China has a dictatorship but they still have 5-yr plans.  Russia too is not held back by a three-legged stool of democracy and seems to move faster.  

Are we seeing the end or an evolution of the Nation-State?  A complex system must change several things simultaneously if it is to maintain balance.  If only one thing is changed, the system will snap-back to what it was before, be it Deep State or whatever.  It is important to look at all aspects of our existence within the Nation-State framework.  This includes looking at the structure of government itself and analyzing what feedback mechanisms keep it on track.   

One option is to put more authority in the hands of a single regional leader, but then also make that leader removable at any time by 80% of any minority.  This would encourage communication in both directions and form a more Dynamic Democracy.  Even Israel could use a Dynamic Democracy for the benefit of everyone.  

A government which is set up only to divide the spoils will push leaders and citizens into separate spaces rather than have them work together to solve problems.   Grassroot citizens – as a group – are often ahead of their leaders, especially in the knowledge of what is happening on the ground.   Paraphrasing Friedrich Hayek: “there is often no substitute for information on the ground.”

Economics too must change if we are to address the health of the economy.  An additional currency could be added at the hyper-local level with about 100 people.  Properly used, hyper-local currencies (HLC) can be used to induce people to cooperate at the local level for the purpose of creating useful goods and services to trade on the open market.  In addition, it creates resistance to inflation and a buffer against recession.  Adding another currency at the hyperlocal level is where people can be accountable to each other without a court system. 

Banks create incentives or gradients when they direct money from one sector to another.  A business then uses that gradient power to create organization.  There are other ways however, of creating organization that can be started by people at the local level.  If ten bread winners are able to support two in their group for some period of time as determined by the group, then those two then can do any job that the group decides is important.   They answer only to the group.  This is an opportunity for grassroots engagement.  In fact, many changes may not start without grassroots.

A new type of nation-state can join with other nation-states and maybe even business to form clusters that have defensive military capabilities.  When the most powerful nation, where leaders dress in fine suits, cannot subdue one of the poorest nations where people dress like Star Wars characters, it may be time to think about different types of governing and military structures.  An Association of Non-Nuclear Nations (AN3) does not need large, impressive buildings or fancy accoutrements, yet such an organization can create a purpose and flexibility that is missing from the United Nations.  It is an exclusive club however, since nuclear nations cannot join.  

Military industries too could find other missions, arming small clusters (3) of non-nuclear nations with non-nuclear missiles, maybe even some that are supersonic.  Lots of money to be made here.  It will be defensive buildup, yet able to reach critical targets within nuclear nations.  This would remove the current advantage of nuclear weapons and point us toward a nuclear-free world.  

If war and war games are the purview of the nation-state, then anti-war games may be the purview of citizens who must otherwise make the sacrifice for war mongers.  What anti-war games look like is still unclear, but many things can be created by people at the grassroots with the goal of making the environment for a next-door neighbor or next-door country more predictable and stable.  We cannot escape the fact that much of nature is about competition, so assertiveness and even aggression may be needed if a potentially dangerous or de-stabilizing threat is detected.  The goal is to create a stable and predictable environment.  Petitions to Congress may not be enough. 

American citizens are told to “wake up!” – but sleep is not the correct metaphor.  People have the wrong story in their heads due to mis- or missing information.  Citizens can create additional information filters made up of small groups using any news source.  They then bring ideas and information back to hash it out in a private space, maybe with team competition.  This would benefit other readers and listeners of the news.   

Another tactic is to focus on one target region or town (foreign or domestic) for a short period of time with the goal of giving people the tools to making their region self-sustaining.  Others may benefit and learn from observation.   This too can be done with competitive games.  There are many places and many levels to start if there are people who see another pathway and share their vision.  One person can also set a gradient, just like a bank, only smaller, by creating an incentive for an individual or small group to answer some specific question.  

A transformed United States is more flexible and able to counteract the OBOR initiatives made by China in the developing world.  Rather than regime change, we can contribute to the developing country becoming independent and healthy.   That country will then be able to resist the OBOR initiatives – and we will gain trading partners.  

A Story to End Israel

Posted on by josuter

Stories can be created by anyone, but stories that create a culture mostly come from people above us in the social hierarchy – people like politicians, religious leaders, parents, teachers, and older siblings.  Time-tested stories provide a structure to help guide beliefs and behavior.  When reality changes, however, the story must also change to match reality.  That is not the case with Israel.  Enemies of Israel, frustrated for decades, are setting a trap to destroy Israel.  Using a known martial arts technique, they are using the force of the opponent turned against the opponent themselves.     

Zionist Christians and Jews in United States, the largest and most powerful country, are force feeding the Zionist war machine with financial and military support.  With war as the primary mode of foreign policy, the coffers of the leaders in Israel are overflowing from well-meaning Jewish and Christian Zionists who are mostly ignorant about what is happening.  

What is happening?  Younger brother has grown up.  Younger brother has developed supersonic missiles with ranges of thousands of kilometers and using pinpoint accuracy from advanced guidance systems.  These missiles have already evaded the Iron Dome to strike military bases within Israel.  Yet Zionists are kept in the dark about this due to censorship and misinformation by government, mainstream media, and local religious leaders.  

Is there a way out?   Maybe.  First, it must be understood that God and Government are not the same.  Secondly, pressure must force better choices by the warring parties.  This pressure can come from leaders in other countries but the pressure itself can be started anywhere at any level.  Leaders must be pushed to find or create alternative pathways.  A Dynamic Democracy could allow significant input by any minority in a new government.  Grassroots people, who primarily want stability and predictability, will also have input in a Dynamic Democracy process. 

Realizing the bad blood between United States and Iran stemming from the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, third parties can host public hearings on why the Iranians felt strongly about charting their own course and their need for a change in government.  This may help to clear the air.  

Writers of the Old Testament, knowing the types of people whose minds were closed, may have been led to write about their demise.  Stories of Armageddon in the Bible may have been written specifically about the end of the Nation of Israel.  Zionists today remain unaware of the impending destruction of the land they say God has given them.  Even if nuclear weapons are used in a war between the US and Iran, Israel will be merely a footnote.  

The Old Stories will not work in a new time and new environment.  Ignorant about what is happening on the ground, Israel is going out on a limb soon to be cut off.  Ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel are already gone.  The last two are headed for a buzz saw.  This is sad for those of us who want Israel to survive.  Tens of Thousands of Zionist supporters within the United States could rise up and demand a change in the government of Israel – but will we?  Can we imagine another future?  

Changing the Story for Israel

Posted on by josuter

Goliath got up on the wrong side of bed.  It would be a difficult day for him.  People of the Jewish faith must thank him for doing it however, since it was Goliath who provided the reason that a shepherd boy David would rise to become King.  It was not surprising that David had skill with his slingshot, having practiced daily to keep the wolves away from the sheep.  He could hit a tin can at 50 paces – or something like that. 

This is a cherished story of Judaism, yet one can imagine another chapter to the story.  Goliath, whose first name was Garth, had a younger sister Billie who had seen the whole incident.  Billie made note of the fact that Garth had not worn is helmet like his mother told him.  Billie was not going to make the same mistake.  Sure enough, on the second meeting with David, Billie was victorious and went on to become Queen of the Philistines. 

Stories can certainly be inspirational, but to be really useful they must touch reality at some point.  Fast forward to Israel today where the Iron Dome is said to keep out all the missiles. . . except they don’t.  The story of the Iron Dome has holes in it, allowing both Iran and Yemen to fire missiles into Israel. This is a problem. Once the enemy has equal or superior military force, the story must change if Israel is to survive. It does not have to be a new Story, but it must change directions and follow a new path. 

Up to this point, Israel’s solution is to “kill the enemy first” before they have a chance to strike, following a strategy conceived by the early Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky.   That might have worked during the time of Abraham and Isaac, but that was long ago.  At that time, a “nation” was a group of related tribes with no geographic boundaries.  The earth was flat and one might see only 50 miles from the top of the nearby mountain. This was their story, and it remains precious, but will it guide us today?  

We must now think not only about who the enemy is, but about who we are.  Are we an older sibling – or are we really an enemy?  This self-concept can make a difference.  Is the God we worship the God of all – or only a God for us?

Then how does one change a story?  It is not a group effort except maybe a consensus to trim a bit here and there like a hairdresser might do. It should grow from a seed from ideas of one or two people, then be compared with another story, then chosen by a third party judge who makes a “decision” (meaning “cut off”), and the process repeated. 

What can Christians do about the war in Gaza?  Christians know both the stories of Abraham and the current direction of Israel.  And we like stories.  We can help to start a new story or at least a change in the current story, and with just a few people, re-iterate the process, invite some outsiders, maybe some Jews, maybe Muslims or others. They can participate but cannot take over the process. If those invited refuse, then we develop the Story alone.  Others may eventually join in to create a new pathway ahead. 

Prisoners of The Story – Or Not?

Posted on by josuter

Prisoners of The Story – Or Not?

Two thousand years ago maybe the Story “worked” but now it needs to be updated because the world has changed.  Opponents now have all the modern warfare technology.   We are not a few hundred people in a tribe fighting over hunting grounds or grazing lands.  

If Donald Trump becomes the next president, Biden may, in his remaining two months, let loose the dogs of war in order to make things more challenging for Trump.  Two of those dogs, B&S, are headed for jail if justice is to be served. They may stop at nothing, pulling us all down.

The Story can be changed if we look at other options.  B&S may never have thought of a Dynamic Democracy model, but it might be the only way forward when neither side wants a two-state solution (and which would allow continued lobbing of missiles to the other side).  

Having a liberal democracy with one-person-one-vote is a key part of the Zionist dream of having a homeland. Yet there are other options, including a Dynamic Democracy that chooses leaders by group methods. It can create dynamic feedback from groups instead of from individuals.  Specific groups may be required on some issues while other times randomly picked groups will work.  If constructed properly, social feedback can even control weapons of mass destruction on the international level.  This Dynamic Democracy model can work if leaders on both sides agree.  It also allows Jews as a minority to still play a prominent role in self-government of a homeland.  

You and I might not know how to move this model of Dynamic Democracy to B&S, but with only 6 degrees of separation between any two people on earth, there must be a pathway.  One can start locally, challenging people around you to consider how to move this model forward.  Results of the first round may give hints. Quickly follow the first round with a remixing of groups or introduction of new players.  This can be done every hour or two until a pathway opens up.  

If Israel only has a minority, then pushing for a liberal Democracy with one-person-one-vote could be the end of Israel.  A Dynamic Democracy as an alternative model could lead the way to finding solutions.