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RACIAL IMPACT OF WHITE NEO-CONSERVATISM:
The Enemy of African American Men
by Glenn Malcolm Burress, Ph.D. and Dorothy Burress Malcolm, MAV*
Remarks on "The Empowerment
of African American Men: Successful Models"
__________________________ *Dorothy Burress Malcolm is a hospital chaplain. Her research area is ethical aspects of prolonging life and death. Glenn Malcolm Burress is a Social Systems Analyst. Since 1978 he has conducted full-time, independent research on the ethics of social system engineering. He was an economics editor at Business Week, Chairman of the Board of Contributing Editors at The Journal of Commerce and deputy manager and economic advisor at the American Bankers Association. They live in Sacramento, California. For more information contact the authors at 306 25th St., Sacramento, Calif. 95816 or call 916-441-5305.
IMPORTANT NOTE
The delivered remarks could only summarize the planned presentation because the speech started 35 minutes late in the final concurrent session. In the middle of the speech I received only five minutes notice that we could not run overtime because the final plannary session was about to start. Hence I went directly to proposed NCAAM action on the three final pages and skipped entire sections including the critical model of racism and white neo-conservatism. The skipped material is in the Appendix. What is reported here in these 12 pages plus the Appendix was never intended for oral delivery but is the statement for the record to support the oral argument. Where rapport with the audience was established, it was possible to become informal and skip detail. However as civil rights lawyers have emphasized in their pleadings, one does not enjoy the luxury of such rapport in written analysis one must, therefore, be more lengthy. This is why this written version runs a bit long. I urge each reader to give us feedback. As reported here, most of the proposed NCAAM action (see Appendix for supporting detail) has a proven record of generous funding from major foundations and large corporations. Should NCAAM return to these sources with proposals to prevent these programs from being appropriated again by major universities -- the reason they all failed? Read here why they failed, and then let us hear from you.
G.E.B.
Some of you have asked: What can two whites tell you about problems of African American men? We know no more about the racial pain of African American men than we know about the pain of white children who starve to death due to economic deprivation. I come before you as the sole spokesperson for a group of white scholars who are about to become extinct. Why? Because since 1920 we have named and formally charged those allegedly responsible for economic oppression of outgroups that now takes the form of the genocide of African American men. I am here seeking an ongoing affiliation so that we may all become empowered by suppressed findings of my mentors during the first third of this century. In the late sixties, they explained why the economic power of African Americans was being destroyed and exactly how the process could be reversed. I want to share that information with you because, it has been suppressed to this day. THE MESSAGE: KNOW OUR ENEMY: It was 1959 when I attended my first Washington conference on a model to empower the economically oppressed. In the five year period ending the year before, the unemployment rate had tripled from 2.5% in l953 to 7.5% in 1958, and the 1958 recession had been the worst since the thirties. We were frightened by an explosion in long-term unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness on a scale we had not seen since the Great Depression. Thursday morning at THIS conference, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes North defined the problem in her keynote speech as if she were reading from the declaration of war by my mentors at that 1959 conference: We are at war against TRICKLE DOWN economics that destroys jobs for the middle class and the poor and increases racism. My mentors won that war 30 years ago and we can do it again! However we must FIRST discover how we won, how that victory was turned into defeat, and THEN we must take the necessary steps to repeat that victory. We won by fighting against political liberals like John Kenneth Galbraith. We convinced President Kennedy to reverse trickle down economics for TRICKLE UP economics. He restored the economic miracle of the Truman Administration and provided the fodder for progress in the civil rights movement in the early sixties. Then less than a year after President Kennedy was killed, political liberals in the Johnson Administration whose mindset was conservative returned to trickle down economics of 1953-58, and things have grown progressively worse with rising racism ever since. The Rev. Sterling Morse asked Congresswoman North to identify the enemy in the war against oppression of African American men and she could not answer him. Rep. Charles Rangel was more on target when he complained that religious moral leaders tolerate the oppression. We who have been fighting in the trenches since 1919 know EXACTLY why we have won or lost every battle. Based on that history, we KNOW the enemy of African American men. The enemy is LIBERAL church leaders, LIBERAL historians, LIBERAL political scientists and LIBERAL economists. It is because all these liberals have a conservative mindset that these LIBERALS have sold out to the right wing. We won because President John F. Kennedy heard explanation that President Harry S. Truman was successful because he rejected the conservative ideology of political liberals. We have lost since 1964 because liberals who control teaching in major universities and preaching in mainline Christian Churches have prevented all presidents from discovering why Presidents Truman and Kennedy were successful. To win this war, we must do the right thing. This means we must be guided by our moral responsibility to our children who are dying due to economic oppression and not by our feelings when white friends object to being called into accountability for their role in that oppression. Our moral responsibility IS to these children and it is NOT to indifferent, white liberal friends in local mainline Christian Churches and universities. If we reject our moral responsibility to our children and continue to be guided by our friendships with powerful white liberals in the universities and local churches, we then forfeit our right to call into accountability powerful right wingers in scandals on Wall Street and in the White House are guided by their friendships and reject their moral responsibility to do the right thing. In 1961 our moral responsibility was to confront our friends in the economics profession. We proved that in 1953 they did the same dumb thing as President Hoover in 1929 after the stock market crash when he reversed successful policy. Our moral responsibility today is to demand political debate of the charge that liberal friends who opposed the policies of both Truman and Kennedy did the same dumb thing again in late 1964. We must be open to evidence that our best efforts to end oppression of African Americans will keep failing until we become aware of and then act on some well documented off-the- record history that is revised out of official history.
Off-the Record History: The Hope We Lost: It's easy to forget the sense of optimism we shared in the mid sixties after the brilliant success of Kennedy's economic policies. In a 1966 lecture at Harvard University, JFK's chief economic advisor, Walter Heller explained, and I quote: "Policies that enable an economy to grow and prosper give substance to presidential pledges to `get the country moving again' or to move toward a great and good society. That society takes root far more readily in the garden of growth than in the dessert of stagnation. When the cost of fulfilling the people's aspirations can be met out of the growing horn of plenty -- instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul -- ideological roadblocks melt away and consensus replaces conflict...As to the individual, abundance enlarges options -- prosperity extends economic freedom more deeply, creating jobs, enabling a president to battle the tyranny of poverty for some without wrenching resources away from others. In the battle against discrimination, prosperity adds economic rights to civil rights."
Off-the-Record History: Why We Lost Hope: In his 1962 Yale Commencement Address, President Kennedy blew the whistle on myths about the federal deficits which are taught by eggheads on both the political right or left at major universities like Yale. They advocate the restrictive budget policy of Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush as well as all of their opponents for election. Indeed JFK warned us that our friends are a far greater threat than our enemies, because we trust our friends. History proves that we do have a choice. On one hand, we can continue l953-60 and 1965-91 TRICKLE DOWN economic policy that increases income of the rich faster than the poor by destroying jobs with both increased racism and accelerating deficits. On the other hand, we can return to 1961-64 TRICKLE UP economic policy that increases the income of the poor faster than that of the rich by creating jobs with reduced racism and balanced budgets. For details on this choice, see the explanation of conventional and unconventional wisdom in the handout. The Chief of Staff of JFK's Council of Economic Advisors had served on that staff since 1952. He had fought hard for Ike's 1953 reversal of Truman's budget policies. When JFK reversed Ike's policies, he was bitter. In September 1964, when I was a Business Week economist, he invited me to come in for a briefing. He explained that President Johnson had ordered the maximum possible rate of economic growth so that the nation could wage JFK's war on poverty and oppression. He explained that it was "therefore necessary to make a minor technical adjustment" in the computer programs used to execute budget policy. He said the adjustment would be made in November when Heller retired as CEA Chairman. As was common back then, he asked Business Week to publish an editorial proposing that the CEA staff make these technical adjustments. After a heated exchange in which I challenged his proposal, the CEA Chief of Staff agreed that he would be reversing Heller's budget policy. I told him that in that case, we not only had to "kiss the civil rights movement goodbye, but that Heller's surplus would be followed by skyrocketing deficits." Before I left the White House that day, I was told that our entire conversation was strictly off-the-record, and would be denied if ever mentioned privately or in the press. When I tried to report this horrible experience both my character and professional reputation were nailed to the cross.
The Evidence and a Scientific Principle No one disputes the reversal of progress in civil rights since 1964. Heller's surplus gave the nation a surplus for the entire 1945-65 period (which has been revised since 1969 to read slight deficit). However between the beginning of the second Johnson Administration and the end of the Carter Administration the federal debt rose 285%. Since then, under Presidents Reagan and Bush, the federal debt has risen another 275%. Hence this is not just a problem of Reagan and Bush; it is a problem that is traced to late 1964. A Scientific Principle: General systems analysis (science) offers an important rule: Over a period of at least three years, the federal budget is an indicator of progress in the control of civil and human rights exactly like a thermometer is an indicator of progress in the control of the room temperature. Surpluses reflect increased civil and human rights and deficits reflect denied civil and human rights. This is the lesson from U.S. history since 1921 except during World War II. Attempts to Blow the Whistle: I soon had to leave Business Week to maintain my human dignity. I have done for corporate boardrooms and Washington what Don Jackson has done for police departments. I became a private consultant to major corporations with a weekly column on Wall Street in the seventies, in which I kept on blowing the whistle. Ten years later in 1974, after all those years of opposition from liberal economists, Congress investigated during 1974-78 under the leadership of Rep. George Mahon (Dem.-Tx.), Chairman, House Appropriations Committee and Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (Dem.-Minn.), Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.
Once government economists agreed to meet with us informally to resolve the conflict, they were promised they would not be asked to respond in public. However, after that promise was made, they postponed every planned meeting. To this day, economists both in and out of government refuse to acknowledge the investigation or the policy reversal. The work of investigation ended when Chairman Humphrey died in 1977 and Chairman Mahon retired in 1979. Dr. Andrew J. Pettifor, Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science during 1981-85, acknowledged the need to investigate why Reagan Administration budget policy failed. He asked me to request several different members of Congress to call him to discuss the proposed reopening of the 1974- 78 Congressional investigation. At least twenty members of Congress were asked, but not one would call him at the White House. Only one would explain on-the-record why they refused to do so. John Obert, speaking for Senator John Melcher (Dem.-Mont.) lamented: "We're all scared. We wouldn't touch your issue with a ten-foot pole. No one around here now has the political security of a Mahon or Humphrey. No Member of Congress will cooperate with you or Heller or the White House scientist."
The Worst Nightmare: The next part of the story is the worst nightmare of my entire life. In early 1977 I was a consultant to a major oil company. Therefore I checked out the arithmetic of White House computer printouts in the New Energy Plan President Carter had just sent Congress. I discovered that a half-trillion dollar error in adding 13 numbers had been written into the computer program. I predicted that if the error were not corrected, the effect would be to destroy the rising economic and political power of OPEC and destroy prospects for peace in the Middle East. We knew from 1919-45 that explosive anger could be the only consequence of denying the hopes and aspirations of millions of Moslems for rising standards of living from exporting oil. Recall that in 1964 I discovered an abuse of computer programs at the White House with similar political implications. Back then I predicted that the abuse would reverse the rising economic and political power of African Americans led by Martin Luther King. In the process of losing that battle in the sixties, I was shocked by racist language used in descriptions of African Americans as a threat to the "American Way." These debates were always off-the-record. During 1977-78 I heard that same racist language again -- this time used to describe Moslems and OPEC leaders as a threat to world peace. When I refused to join the cover-up, the Washington lobby representing my client immediately fired me. I then reported the problem in three articles in my Wall Street column and it was canceled. Soon every consulting relationship was canceled. I had always felt personal responsibility for waiting too long to take legal action in an effort to correct the 1964 abuse, and I therefore announced planned court action in the fall of 1978. Among the unmentionable indignities we suffered, there were threats on the lives of my children and me. This only made me more determined. In early 1979 as I was about to start an early morning round of golf, I was arrested at the golf course by police. At the police station, senior officers complained to the arresting officers that their report showed that I should be charged with drunk driving and not public intoxication. I knew that if charged with drunk driving there would be a blood alcohol test whereas no test would be given with the lesser charge. I demanded that I be charged with drunk driving so that a blood test would prove there was no alcohol in my body and that this was a farce. There was an uproar and I was jailed without a blood test. Once jailed, I was so badly beaten that I had three brain operations, during which I was twice pronounced technically dead. I was told I was not expected to live. I had to learn to walk, to talk, and otherwise function. Today you see and hear some of the lasting effects of the brain damage. To this day, medical authorities remain astounded that the brain damage did not affect my intellectual ability. But because I refuse to stop my whistle-blowing on big business, I've not worked professionally since 1978. It's only been since I've developed friendships with African Americans that I've been able to talk openly about this nightmare. Indeed some African American men have been able to describe the entire sequence once I told them what happened at the golf course -- explaining that this is exactly what has happened to so many of their own in this so-called free society. On the other hand, whites treat my report like a woman reporting rape: Whites accuse me of not reporting what I did to deserve this! Your nodding heads today tell me again why I've been able to tell this story to African Americans. * * * I've just been advised that we're running out of time because we started 35 minutes late. Hence I'll need to skip the crucial section explaining how social system analysis requires us to treat the rise in neo-conservatism and racism as predictable symptoms of a problem we can reverse. We must also skip the brief section on Scientific Failure Analysis which shows how to use science to end the system failure producing these symptoms. Ask us to send you what we must skip. (It appears as the Appendix.) We only have time for the final section on how NCAAM can make a difference.
The Mandate for NCAAM Leadership: There is much that NCAAM can do. We propose that NCAAM urge the Congressional Black Caucus to reopen and complete the l974-78 Congressional investigations. NCAMM can lead the western world's discovery that teaching from kindergarten to the Ph.D. level in history, political science, economics, theology and law as well as worship and preaching in mainline Christian Churches can have either a racist or a non-racist impact on public policy. Through computer simulations, we can show that racial justice is still an option to the rising racial injustice which has been recorded EXACTLY AS PREDICTED since 1964. Drawing largely on what Congress discovered during 1974-78, let us certify and teach five propositions: First, the rise in racism since 1964 has been the predicted consequence of unconstitutional budget policy. Second, like apartheid in South Africa, racist economic policy is within our control and CAN BE REVERSED. Third, Congress cannot respond to its own findings because politically liberal intellectual neo-conservatives (see Appendix) deny we few scholars access to the marketplace for ideas. As a result, national political debate to reverse racial injustice since 1964 cannot be informed. Fourth, in American political forums there is less freedom to advocate a reversal of economic oppression as indirect racial oppression than there is in South Africa political forums to advocate a reversal of racial oppression as indirect economic oppression. In particular, there is less freedom to propose debate of spending increases and tax cuts of the Kennedy Administration as a proven successful NON-RACIST alternative to the proven failure of RACIST budget policy of the Bush Administration than there is freedom in South Africa to propose debate of reversing apartheid. History teaches that it is therefore necessary to resolve this conflict in judicial rather than political forums. Fifth, under constitutional law, only states have judicial standing to sue the federal government. The states should sue for the accelerating failure of state economies and their budget crises. Therefore the proposed Congressional hearings should develop "uniform findings-of-fact" to serve as a model to be adopted by state legislatures for proposed law suits against the federal government. NCAAM Redirected Research: To address the problem in higher education, we propose that NCAAM become a vehicle for completing the research programs funded by major foundations and others at institutions like the Universities of Cincinnati and Kentucky in the fifties and sixties. That program will show that Ph.D. programs in history, economics, other social sciences and theology can have either a racist or a non-racist impact on socio-economic policy. NCAAM Redirected Teaching: We propose that NCAAM serve as a vehicle for funded programs for expanded K-12 teaching in the social sciences in all fifty states. Let's inform both legislatures and educators that there is both a racist and non-racist interpretation of economic history. This project would include local, grassroots effort working through local school boards. Let us demand an end to the current restriction on K-12 teaching in the social sciences to racist conventional wisdom. Let's exercise our right to make certain that our children are informed so that future political debate will be informed.
Economic Rights Commission: We propose that NCAAM urge the Black Caucus in Congress to reopen the 1974-78 Congressional investigation to discover that the nation needs an Economic Rights Commission to pursue the goals of the Civil Rights Commission and the U.N. Charter. All conflict over federal budget and monetary policy shall be resolved by the Economic Rights Commission on the basis of the legal test of evidence for social crimes against humanity as that test was applied at the Nuremberg Trials. New law should require that any proposal for budget or monetary policy shall require certification by the Commission as in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights before being submitted to Congress, the President or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
The Wrap-Up Dr. Walter P. Egle has been my mentor and friend since 1955 and he almost lost his life waging this battle in Nazi Germany. At a l987 meeting we asked him for a message for we few members in the pews of mainline Christian Churches who are seeking liberation from immoral teaching and preaching in our churches. He gave us a dramatic, independent answer to the question from Rev. Sterling Morse: If this is war who is the enemy? In a near-whisper he offered a firm, unqualified declaration: Your struggle in America is more troublesome than ours in Nazi Germany because the enemy wears the wrong uniform. We would never have escaped alive if the storm troopers had worn the clerical garb of your pastors. Let us each study both President Eisenhower's Farewell Address warning us about the Military-Industrial Complex and President Kennedy's Yale Commencement Address warning us about the eggheads at major universities. As we do so, let us discern why both Walter Egle and Rep. Rangel emphasized the role of church leaders: Of the various authorities in the Military-Industrial-University-Church Complex, the moral authority of the churches is the most important authority of all. Hence the glue that unifies the oppressor is the silence of church leaders. The silence of moral authority is the chain that binds us in oppression. Let us draw courage from Spike Lee to do the RIGHT THING and let the chips fall where they may. We will then secure freedom of African American men from accelerating economic oppression. Finally, I must mention a proposal that I skipped due to time pressure. Professional ethics do not allow economists to keep insisting that they alone shall decide if they have succeeded when they obviously have failed. We must quit condoning economists who define their success or failure with technical measures of GNP which few of them understand. For these reasons, The 1989 United Nations Report on the State of the World's Children proposed that the death rate of children under five replace GNP as a measure of the success of national economic policy and the competence of the economics profession. That report shows that Black children under five are dying each year at a faster rate than Jews during the four year Nazi holocaust. It also shows that during a period in which the death rate of Black children in Africa has risen just under 20%, this same rate for mostly white male children in industrialized nations has fallen more than 80%. The racial genocide of the world's children is being replicated in America in cities like Washington. As the sole measure of the success of economic policy, we propose the following test: the elimination of the racial difference in the preventable deaths of children under five. Let us discover that ethical economic policy which eliminates the racial difference in the genocide of our children will maximize the rate of growth in GNP, will minimize the death rate of all children and will restore U.S. leadership of the world. We predict that the most profound impact will be to program African American males with a deep faith in their own potential before they are five years old. And isn't that what the National Council of African American Men is all about? APPENDIX From the Prepared Text and Not Summarized in the Speech Authority for the Methodology: Our primary intellectual and emotional support comes from Walter P. Egle. Since 1955 Walter has been both mentor and close personal friend. He is the singular pioneer in the theoretical work of comparative social systems analysts. Let us be sensitive to the fact that he nearly lost his life when he drew on his research to challenge the Nazi version of repressive U.S. social planning. He agrees that the U.S. version is more dangerous. WHY? Because the systematic extinction of African American males is an unrecognized covert process, whereas Nazi extinction of German Jews was overt. Every few weeks we consult with this intellectual giant who is for the social sciences what Einstein was to the physical sciences. Egle and his cohorts had their heyday after World War I when they criticized the United States for refusing to reverse the march into World War II. In the early fifties they were silenced by Senator Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Then in the late fifties and sixties each of us was muzzled in frightening covert action of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. So far as we know the last time a popular book -- this one for high schools -- was literally burned in America was in 1969. All copies in print were thrown into the New York City incinerator with the active support of leading intellectual conservatives on the political left. There has been no time when guidance from Walter Egle has given us more reason to carry on than during the 1969 book burning. His courage during book burning in Nazi Germany was a model to empower us. Almost no one knows about our small group. Many of us have been denied pads and, in fact, at a press conference President Reagan argued that this is why our ideas should not be addressed in political debate. The bottom line is that leaders in mainline universities and churches reject our legitimacy as scholars. Indeed due to accelerating ACUTE APARTHEID imposed on us since 1920, I am the youngest member of our group at 56, and the next youngest is Walter P. Egle who is 87. ACUTE apartheid in America differs from apartheid in South Africa. Both refer to a life of separate development and denied human rights including denied jobs, denied equal pay, and denied freedom to teach, to speak and to publish. However apartheid in South Africa is more ethical because it is acknowledged and can be challenged. In contrast, ACUTE APARTHEID in America cannot be challenged because it is denied by each unit of the power structure, the Military-Industrial-University-Church Complex. The result is that we have all lived our lives and almost all of us have died without having a support group like NCAAM. Recent research on addiction to power propels the preliminary diagnosis that the polite indifference to our scientific discoveries is a tool of unconscious racial oppression. For these reasons we are thrilled that Richard Majors has revitalized our hope by inviting us to join with you in NCAMM. Our scientific model has been applied with success in fourteen nations, and it teaches a simple lesson. Regardless of the culture, when there has been a quarter century of increased economic oppression of a non-economic group like African American Men, we should check for the unethical use of the technology of economic policy. That technology was designed, not only to increase the income of all people, but to increase the income of the poor and the middle class faster than the income of the rich for an economically strong and politically powerful middle class. This knowledge propels the rigorous scientist to a four-fold diagnosis that can be expected to hold up well: First, culture-free, scientific diagnosis expects to trace the destroyed economic power of African American men to the unethical use of the technology of policy. Second, we may assume that the U.S. power structure has used its freedom to prohibit political debate of the first expectation. Third, we can establish the facts required to restore the economic power of all African Americans ONLY through judicial fact finding in proceedings like those of the Rogers Commission in the Challenger tragedy -- followed by political debate of those findings-of-fact. Fourth, to fail to work for a successful investigative model like that provided by the Rogers Commission is acting in complicity with the enemy of African American men.
The Methodology: General Principles: Walter Egle taught us that we are successful only if we apply what we were taught in high school about the scientific method. In particular, we will be successful only to the extent that we address causes rather than symptoms of problems. The cause is almost never found in study of the symptom. In scientific problem solving, the test for having identified a fundamental cause is a well known, simple axiom:
With this axiom social system analysis provides a CRITICAL corollary:
There is no better example of treating symptoms and making the problem worse than attempts to reduce the federal debt since 1964. Since then the symptom has been treated as the problem: spending that is too high and/or taxes that are too low. After no change in federal debt for 1945-65, it rose 285% during 1965-80, and 275% since then. Consider a medical analogy. If we observe that a person suffers from respiratory problems, high temperature, vomiting, sharp chest pains, weakness and seizures, only a fool would assume that any one of these six symptoms is the cause of all six. Common sense propels us to reason that each of them is a symptom of a single, major, underlying problem like a heart attack. Social System Symptoms: Since 1964 we have directly observed the rise in non-issue Presidential elections and the decline in voter participation; the decline in ethics and morality in Watergate and Irangate and gang warfare on Main Street. We directly observe S&L scandals, fraud on Wall Streets in New York City, London and Tokyo. We also directly observe increased wife beating and child abuse, homicide and suicide, and poverty and homelessness. We also observe the rise in racism, neo-conservatism, genocide of Black males and RISING economic oppression of African Americans since 1964. These are all symptoms. The COROLLARY teaches us that if we treat the symptom as the cause, the symptoms will grow more acute. To repeat, direct intervention in human suffering is always appropriate. However that is not treatment of the cause. Consider a case history: There are few better examples than the three-fold rise in racism, Third World Debt Crisis and financial system failure illustrated by the S&L "scandal." In 1967 when I was Economic Advisor of the American Bankers Association I predicted that each of these three sub- systems -- like other sub-systems -- would become "more bankrupt" until their 1964 common origin were corrected. The S&L crisis is now more obviously getting worse faster than we can intervene in symptoms ONLY because the problem can be quantified in dollar terms. We challenge NCAAM to world leadership by serving its own, TO WIT: Let NCAAM act as an international healing force starting with our own workshops in which we first learn for ourselves and then teach the Black Caucus. Then we could teach Congress that none of these problems will be solved until all three are solved AT ONCE because they are symptoms reflecting a common cause. African Americans should provide leadership in the demand for a common solution by defining the symptom as sick domestic and international financial systems. Then with the AXIOM and the COLLORARY as the authority, let us use computer simulations to prove that an optimal remedy to this symptom is a massive Marshall Plan for African Americans. Observe that one finds no direct evidence of problems of African Americans in the statistics that reveal the sick financial system. A Marshall Plan for African Americans is not a new idea. What we offer that is new is quite simple: The reason this proposal has been rejected is that the paradigm of conventional wisdom dictates proof that this would make the problems worse when the fact is that the paradigm of unconventional wisdom -- validated by methods universal to all science -- dictates proof that just the opposite is true.
The Methodology: Lessons from Errors of Others: Egle taught us to proceed as follows. Document for those who hurt that their pain is a symptom that can be predicted by an independent fact, and then show how that fact can be changed. Since the late sixties in presentations like this on Wall Street, the symptom we have emphasized is that the inflation adjusted value of stocks remains below its 1964 value. We then explain how lost stock and bond prices can be restored by addressing the underlying cause. Wall Street has refused to respond, rejecting a remedy that does not directly affect stock and bond prices. That is, Wall Street is a prisoner of conventional wisdom and there fore will work only with programs that treat the symptom as the cause. As predicted, more than twenty years later stock and bond prices remain below their 1964 values. Since 1980 we have made presentations to advocates for the homeless and the symptom we have emphasized is the rising number of homeless persons who freeze to death each winter. We then show how that trend can be reversed within 12 months if they address the underlying causal variable. They have objected -- arguing that homelessness is their primary concern. In short, they keep making the same mistake as experts on Wall Street and, as we have predicted, the symptom, the number of homeless freezing to death each winter, keeps rising. In 1983 we asked Andrew J. Pettifor, in President Reign's White House Office of Science to take the same approach to reversing the rise in the federal debt from just under $1,000-billion dollars when President Reagan took office to $1,137-billion at the end of 1982. As a scientist, Pettifor immediately called for open, political debate of our proposal. However economists advocating conventional wisdom silenced us -- taking the same position as experts on Wall Street and advocates of the homeless. As predicted, the federal debt has risen from $1,137 at the end of 1982 to more than $3,500- billion in mid-1991. When Richard Majors urged Dorothy and me to address racism and neo- conservatism of whites, he was concerned that members of NCAAM would be angry if we asked them to become concerned with a problem that most NCAAM members would see as unrelated -- the failure of budget policy since 1964. We asked Richard to risk giving us a chance to explain why this approach offers so much hope to African American Men.
Thanks to Richard's courage, we have been given this opportunity. We will now show the relationship between rising neo-conservatism, the failure of federal budget policy since 1964 and consequent accelerating racial oppression of NCAAM members. As we have prepared this analysis, we have been moved by a sense that if this nation is to heal from its many social system afflictions, it may be through the healing hands of African American Men.
Application: A Model of Rising Racism and Conservatism: Systematic diagnosis and treatment of a problem starts with rigorous definitions. Liberal and conservative are important forces in our reality. However these terms are a source of confusion because survival requires each of us to be both liberal and conservative. That is, both terms describe each of us. Hence our model must define these terms in order to harness both the liberal and the conservative power within our souls so that we can diagnose and bring social crises under control. We emphasize the importance of sticking with these precise definitions if confusion is to be avoided. First, we distinguish between those who are political conservatives and those who are political liberals. Advisors to Republican Presidents illustrate political conservatives. Advisors to Democratic Presidents illustrate political liberals. Second, we distinguish between intellectual conservatives and intellectual liberals. Intellectual conservatives are rigorously defined as suggested by George Orwell in 1984: They invoke orthodox authority to validate specific ideas about social justice. That authority is research findings of non-accountable Ph.D. programs in major universities in economic history, political science, public finance, theology as well as the teachings of mainline Christian churches. Intellectual liberals are rigorously defined as those who validate their ideas with time-tested fact-finding processes like arbitration that are universal to all science as prescribed by the philosophy of science. As a result, their ideas have been validated by successful predictions.
It is critical to note that almost all political liberals are intellectual conservatives. Moreover, they dominate our educational system as the keepers of conventional wisdom and politically correct thought. It was George Orwell who warned us more than 40 years ago that totalitarianism had taken root in the minds of intellectuals in both England and the United States. Over the last 25 years these intellectual conservatives have systematically imposed acute apartheid on Egle and his students who report scientific discoveries for social justice that have been ruled to be politically incorrect. Finally, we need to apply these definitions to federal budget policy. Federal budget policy is defined as social planning to balance the budget in a process that dictates size of government in terms of its financial capacity to serve citizens. Now for the most important distinction of all: conservative vs. liberal budget policy. To reduce the deficit, conservative budget policy prescribes fiscal restraint that INCREASES the unemployment rate and retards economic growth. Due to its effect on the economy, conservative budget policy predictably increases the deficit. Federal budget policy since 1964 has been conservative and progressively restrictive, as in the case of the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Science shows that the predicted consequence of engineering the social environment with restrictive conservative budget policy is rising racism associated with rising conservatism. To reduce the deficit, liberal budget policy prescribes fiscal policy that REDUCES the unemployment rate, inducing accelerated productivity and maximum economic growth. Due to its effect on the economy, liberal budget policy predictably reduces the deficit and will balance the budget. Federal budget policy during the Truman and Kennedy Administrations was liberal, or permissive. History also shows that the predicted consequence of engineering the social environment with permissive liberal budget policy is decreased racism. (For more detail, see the handout.) Four powerful conclusions necessarily follow. Please read them carefully. First, intellectual conservatives advocate the unqualified support of restrictive budget policy that predictably increases the deficit and engineers increased racism. Additionally, they advocate the unqualified rejection of permissive liberal budget policy that predictably balances the budget and engineers reduced racism. Second, intellectual liberals advocate unqualified support for permissive liberal budget policy that predictably balances the budget and engineers reduced racism. Additionally, they advocate the unqualified rejection of restrictive budget policy that predictably increases both the deficit and racism. Third, observe carefully. Under our federal system, state educational systems are relied upon to inform citizens. However, the authority for conservative budget policy is the same authority that controls state educational systems. That authority is the Ph.D. programs in the social sciences at major universities about which we were warned not only by George Orwell, but also by President John F. Kennedy in his l962 Yale Commencement Address. Hence citizens are denied awareness of liberal budget policy, which means they are denied the knowledge necessary to call into accountability the makers of conservative budget policy. Fourth, it follows that our educational system programs the system for rising racism and neo-conservatism.
Lessons from the Rogers Commission: Within a few hours after the Challenger space shuttle exploded, I called Andy Pettifor. He agreed it was reasonable to assume that the same scientific failure analysis which would be used to investigate why Challenger had exploded could be used to discover why our social system had failed since 1964. I'm sure you are all quite familiar with this approach. You've seen ads on TV where automobile companies crash cars to study the results. Some of you are also aware that when an airplane crashes, computer simulations are often used to simulate the crash. The first step is to try to write a Prescription for Failure so that we can simulate system failure at will. When we can fail at will, we can write a more successful Prescription for Success. The Prescription for Failure in this case is the computer program for conservative budget policy. The Prescription for Success is the computer program for liberal budget policy. These are described in the Figure in the handout. In the Congressional publication cited there, one finds 66 variants of the Prescription for Failure, and 121 variants of the Prescription for Failure. Hence our task is to become experts on how to engineer failure so that we can write more reliable Prescriptions for Success. Then we need only let success happen.
A Word from the Father of American Pragmatism: We suggest that Americans confuse good manners with good science. Nobody said it better than mathematical philosopher, C.S. Peirce, the father of American pragmatism, who, before World War I wrote: "We who speak from the inquiring spirit cannot say that the gentlemen are a lot of ignorant fools... Whenever there is a large class of academic professors who are provided with good incomes and looked upon as gentlemen, scientific inquiry must languish." And then he added, "Whenever the bureaucrats are the more learned class, the case will be still worse." |
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