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7.17.2020

2020年米大統領選挙の問題点

以下は日刊ベリタ2020.07.13に投稿したものの転送です。皆さんはアメリカ大統領選挙に多大な関心をお持ちと思います。それに関して若干意見というか感想を。ところで、(2)のほうのBLM運動の問題点、今後ますます混乱を引き起こす可能性があります。すでに、BLMという言葉が、ポリテカリーコレクトになり、運動が暴走しているようであり、これに批判的な大学教師が首を切られるなどの現象がでているようですので、ご注意のほどを。



2020年アメリカ大統領選挙戦に見るアメリカ社会の問題
2020.07.13


2020年の大統領選挙は、コロナ禍がなくとも、問題だらけで、どちらが当選しようと、アメリカの未来、いやそれに支配されている人類社会に良い影響は期待できない。この問題を少し考えてみたい。

(1) 世界覇権問題

アメリカは第2次大戦後の世界で、覇権を維持しようと懸命であったし、今でもそういう意識を持つ支配層がある。大戦で大被害を受けながら、ナチスに勝利したソ連、すなわち社会主義・共産主義というアメリカの支配層を脅かしかねない思想・政策を、徹底して押しつぶすことを企画、いや戦力を持ってしてもなきものにしようと画策してきた。これは実は、イギリスのチャーチルの思想を受け継いだものである。共産主義国家としてのソ連が崩壊した今でも、これが、いわゆるネオコン的考えであり、現在の民主党の支配層をがんじがらめにしている。民主党ばかりでなく、主要報道機関もこうした考えに支配されている。こうした考えに反旗を翻したケネデイー大統領は暗殺され、それ以降の大統領は、オバマも含めて、こうした考えに支配されてきた。
 このような状況下、こうした考えにはなじめていないトランプが大統領になってしまった。トランプは、ソ連(いやロシア)を軍事的にでも支配下に置こうなどということなどは考えず、自分の考えの基本—商業的利益獲得—のためには、そんなことをせず、外交上開けた関係を持とうと画策してきたが、ネオコンに影響された人間が閣僚にも多く、反対の民主党がロシア疑惑なることをでっちあげるなどして、彼をけり落とそうと躍起になっている。
 こうしたトランプの考えでは、北朝鮮問題でも、いつまでも軍事的緊張関係を続けておく必要がない、だから関係改善を図ろうと、米朝会談を実行したのだが、ネオコン派(その代表格の1人がボルトン)に邪魔されてまだ実現に至っていない。ネオコン派は、北朝鮮は、中国・ロシアと対抗するには重要な位置にあるもので、その覇権施策のためには、相手側に渡したくないのであろう。このような情勢下では、北朝鮮は、リビアが、カダフィが残忍に殺害されて混乱に落とし入れられた例のようにならないように、核力を含めて反発力があることを誇示せざるをえない。
 そこに、中国問題が台頭してきた。中国そのものは、軍事的にではなく、経済的(商業的)に世界を支配下に置こうという覇権意識が、現政権者にあるようで、しかも、技術的にも世界最先端を行こうと懸命である。
 なお、中国問題は、香港問題に集約されているように、昔からの英国の中国支配の意識の延長もあり、それがアメリカに輸入されてしまった。これはイギリスが世界制覇を果たしすつつあったときに、まだ完全な支配下におけていなかった中国・ロシアをなんとかしたいという策略(日本は日英同盟などで、それに巻き込まれていった)の継承である。
 ところが、経済的、技術的に中国が力を付けてきたことに、トランプは、脅威を感じ出したようである。トランプの最大の関心事であるアメリカの経済・技術上の優位維持が脅かされてきたからである。そこに、コロナ禍が発生し、その発生源を中国に押し付けることで、中国の国際的地位に傷をつけようと懸命になったようである。
 ただ、ネオコン派はこれをさらに拡大して、 中国の影響拡大を軍事的に閉じ込めようとしていて、南支那海に軍事力をちらつかせている。すなわち、英米の世界覇権の意図が、ロシア・中国の軍事・経済力の増大とぶつかる事態になっている。なお、ロシアの軍事技術はすでにアメリカを凌駕していると噂されている。

(2)BLM運動など

コロナ禍の最中に、ミネアポリス市で1人の黒人George Foyerが、警察官に頚を膝で押さえつけられて窒息死するという事件が発生。これは、人種差別の典型例として、多くの人が、アメリカのみならず、人種差別反対に立ち上がった。その際に、すでに数年前から活動していたBLMBlack Lives Matter)という組織が乗り出し、運動を引きずる形になった。この標語そのものに反対する理由はなく、多くの都市などで、街路に大きくBLACK LIVES MATTERなどと書き込まれた。この運動は、かなりの期間、多くの都市で繰り返された(ている)。いままでに、アメリカ国内で2千5百万ぐらいの人がこの運動に何らかの形で参加したそうである。その中心には、黒い服装と黒いマスクなどを纏ったBLMAntiFaAnti Fascism)といった正当な主張を持つとされる組織の人々が、運動を煽る姿がある。そして、単に人種差別反対を唱えるだけでなく、建物の破壊や商品の強奪などの暴動も、特に米国首都のワシントンなどで見られるようになった。アメリカ西岸の主要都市シアトルでは、こうした若者達が市の一部を占拠し、独立的自衛領域を宣言し、シアトル警察,市長も譲歩した。
 ところが、シアトルのこの占拠地帯では犯罪が横行したし、BLM運動を優先するような施策をしたニューヨーク市などでも、犯罪が増えている。実は、こうした運動の背景にはある種の人たちの思惑があり、人権問題を主題とするよりは、これを利用して自分達の都合のよい方向に社会を動かそうとする意図があるようである。
 アメリカには、富豪達が、 社会に奉仕する(寄附)という姿勢をもつ組織がかなりある(実際は、税金逃れが目的だが)。かなり信用のおけるある論者は、こうした組織(特定名称まで明かしているが)からBLMにすでにかなり以前からカネが渡されており、BLM中の若者には、社会撹乱の方策の指導までなされているとのことである(*)。背景にいる人たちの目的は、社会を混乱に陥れ、現政権に打撃を与え、大統領選挙で自分達の都合のよい結果を生むように画策しているとのことである。こうしたことが背景にあるという認識は、他の人にもあるようである。
 なお、人権運動に参加する人たちでも、黒人差別という明白な事実に目を向けることはしても、アメリカの国内の所得格差、医療保険の不備その他の問題が人種差別に関連していること、また南米チリから始まって、アメリカ支配層に都合の悪い国・政権(リビア、シリア、イランその他)を破壊するために、アメリカが大量の人民を殺傷しているという事実には目をつぶる、いや、そうしたことは意識にのぼることすらないらしいことは、この国、またはそれに追従する国々の人々の基本的な問題点である。このような若者達を焚き付けて、支配層は自分達に好都合な政権を打ち立てようとしている。

(*)https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-own-color-revolution/5716153


7.14.2020

Peace and sustainability: A Basis of Education

This was published in 2011 Winter issue of "Global Educator".



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            Peace and Sustainability: A Basis for Education

                                                         Eiichiro Ochiai
                                   Global Educator, Winter 2011, p14-17


Humankind is currently in a deep trouble.  The end of human civilization is now a question in the realm of possibility.  An immediate issue is economic crisis: the current capitalistic market economy is now critically wounded.  The basic idea behind the current economy is ‘growth’ (of economic activities in terms of quantity), which is contradictory to a sustainable human civilization.  Our economic activities (consumption) have now surpassed the carrying capacity of the earth, and are on the brink of collapse.  Besides, a few individuals, the so-called economic elite have cleverly or grossly (depending on the point of view) steered the whole economic system in a direction in which only they benefit from the economy, and the great majority of humankind suffer economically.  The impetus for economic growth makes nations to compete for the limited resources on the earth, threatening us with, perhaps, an ultimate war between big players.  In order for humankind to avoid such dangers and establish a sustainable and peaceful civilization, all humankind – the young and children above all – must learn how to approach it.  With this in mind, here I will try to show very briefly what needs to be implemented in the education system.
Peace and sustainability are intimately intertwined, and cannot be separated:  peace is a precondition for sustainable human civilization, but peace on the earth cannot be realized unless human society attains sustainability.  These issues are the basics for human survival and hence should be the basis for education.  We will first discuss what peace and sustainability entail, how these states might be attained, and then how the issues should be incorporated in education.
First, let’s focus on sustainability.  The word sustainability is not well delineated, and means different things to different people, it seems.  It should not be “to sustain a status quo”, though most often it is used to mean just that.  That is, it is often meant to sustain one’s condition without regard to how it affects others – that is, other people, other communities, other countries, other living organisms, the environment, the earth as a whole, and more.
Here let us define sustainability to mean that the entire human race, not just the advanced societies, sustains itself and that each and every individual has a right to enjoy the best life possible within this sustainability constraint: this is the basic human right.  This does not necessarily imply that all the people on this earth should attain the same material standard.  Each region (country) has its unique and limited ecology, and the people in it should live more or less self-sufficiently and happily within sustainable constraints, with some resources equitably distributed among regions.  In other words, renewable material (that is, plants) can be cultivated and raised in each region to the extent of being capable of sufficiently sustaining (feeding, clothing and housing) the population.  Nonrenewable resources are distributed unequally among regions.  In a sustainable civilization, these resources would be regarded to belong to all human race and other living organisms.  These resources are distributed among different regions according to the need, and used in sufficiently sustainable manners.  This presupposes cooperation rather than individual egotistic competitive activities at every level of human endeavor.
Currently the people in advanced countries are enjoying enormously affluent material lives, at the expense of the people in the developing countries, the majority of whom are living miserably in terms of material.  This is far from the condition of the sustained human civilization outlined above.  On average, humankind is currently using renewable resources in excess of renewable rate by more than 20%, and this is rising.
To attain a sustainable use of resources, people in the currently affluent nations need to significantly reduce their consumption of energy and material, and measures should be taken to raise the wellbeing (in terms of material) of people in the developing world, so that all can attain comparable levels of material affluence, though not necessarily the same level.  The overall consumption level should be much lower than the current level (that is, over 20% lower).  The crucial point is that people in any region should feel they are living happy, worthy lives.  To attain such a sustainable human civilization, with the majority of people feeling happy, is a very tall order.  But that is what we should aim at attaining in future.
Now, let us turn our attention to peace – or rather, war.  Many ancient civilizations could not sustain themselves and collapsed due to overexploitation of the environment.  Their living conditions were usually precarious, particularly in nomadic, pastoral regions.  A tribe in such a region might have been living reasonably well, but usually did not have any extra expendable luxury due to technological and territorial constraints.  They had to move to another place when their lifestyle had become untenable.  Or, when another tribe tried to come and occupy their territory, they had to fight back to defend themselves by killing the invading tribe or capturing and enslaving them.  They needed to do so because their territory simply could not accommodate another bunch of people.  The people created and resorted to a God who would protect them.  The God was a supernatural being, omnipotent, and the people were told that their God was ‘good’, protecting the people who believed in it.  But the other God another tribe believed in was ‘evil’.  Hence it was permissible to slaughter those people who believed in the wrong God.  Thus, nomadic people created monotheism and they believed they were the ‘chosen’ people – that is, chosen by the true God, as, for example, Zionists and their Christian supporters believe.
War, under the circumstances just described, became a normal human behavior, sanctioned by God, and codified by sacred manuscripts.  This kind of war can be designated as “war of first kind”, a sort of natural condition for war.  This might reflects the ancient living condition of nomads, in which limited resources could not be shared with another tribe, and invaders not allowed to coexist.  This spirit (that is, animosity toward other tribes) seems to be still prevalent among many tribes, and also among people who believe literally in the sacred books of monotheism, despite the fact that humankind has attained such an enormous improvement in living condition that today people should be able to share and live together.  The ethnic conflicts still rampant in today’s world are essentially of this kind, though the basic reasons are varied: economic, cultural, and political – but perhaps not the basic survival needs of ancient times.
An extension of this kind of war has become aggressive expansion of territory, as seen in the wars of Alexander the Great and the Roman empire, and the Mongolian invasion of the western half of Eurasia.  War of this kind was fought beyond necessity, and was purely an aggressive kind of war – “war of second kind”.  Such war has been prevalent in colonialism from the15th through 20th centuries.
However, war in today’s world is often fought for the sake of financial benefit for some influential elites, though it is usually claimed that it is for the sake of security of people (that is, for protecting people’s lives and livelihood).  In reality, people are victimized.  Soldiers are killed and a large number of civilians are also killed as a side effect.  Meanwhile, some elites and corporations gain an enormous amount of money by providing weaponry and other related supplies.  The Iraqi and Afghan wars are good examples.  They have little to do with the security of American people, though initially they were meant for preventing ‘terror’ attacks on American soil.  They had a lot to do, instead, with making money for military-related corporations and oil companies.  This is “war of the third kind”.
 “War of fourth kind” may be waged to secure precious resources.  This is in a sense an extension of wars of the second and third kinds, but has a very different connotation.  Corporations force the government to go to wars of the third kind, but the national government is the cause of war of second kind.  Resources on the earth are becoming ever scarcer, and nations are eager to grab resources still available.  Take China as an example.  Of course there are a number of such candidates including India, Brazil and others.  The Chinese government, having such a large population, needs a large quantity of resources of all kinds.  It has been estimated that resources equivalent to those of two-and-a-half earths would be necessary for all Chinese people to enjoy material wealth comparable to that of people in today’s ‘advanced’ nations.  The Chinese government is trying to expand its sphere of influence so that it gains access to resources all over the world, especially in resource-rich Africa.  The former colonial power and dominant nations of Europe and the US are also trying to secure natural resources as well as they can, and seem to have already started to prepare for an eventual confrontation with China.  China is of course rapidly building its military power.  If this results in a war (of the fourth kind), human civilization will be destroyed, as the major contenders all possess nuclear arsenals.   This has to be avoided by all means.  But even if this competition is resolved peacefully, the consequence will be a very rapid depletion of the earth’s resources.
Humankind is now at a very crucial moment in its history.  The civilization we currently taken for granted is facing imminent death from two causes.  One is war, and another is excessive consumption of material resources (both renewable and non-renewable).  War may be inevitable.  That is, peace may not be attainable unless the human race attains the wisdom of living within sustainable constraints.  On the other hand, peace is a precondition for sustainable civilization, because war simply wastes precious human and material resources.  We need to realize that both issues – peace and sustainability – are faces of the same coin.
Dr. Vanadana Siva, an eco-philosopher and activist, began her acceptance speech at the Sydney Opera House for the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize with these words: “When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and Afghanistan.  But the bigger war is the war against the planet.  This war has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits – limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and economic concentration.”  She equates our current growth economy to the war against the earth, and implies that it is not sustainable.  But changes needed to reduce the assault on the earth should include the abolishment of wars by force on people and nations.
In order to attain such a sustainable and peaceful civilization, people have to learn to respect each other and other cultures, restrain their urge to own and consume more, and consider non-violent resolution as the human norm in resolving conflicts, particularly those among nations.  And this has to be the basis for education, in its broadest sense, for everybody.
Education starts as soon as one is born.  The brain is wired by experience in every sense: interaction with the environment, parents, siblings, grandparents, and others.  In the early stages of life, education is done mostly through upbringing by parents.  It is their worldview and ethical system that have the strongest influence on the child.
When children come to formal education, they are subjected to the educational norms imposed by authority, the majority of which still cling to the unsustainable political/economic view.  Changing the formal education system requires awareness of people regarding its shortcomings.  It is difficult and cannot be accomplished soon.  But it is possible, and people in the educational world can start changing the fundamental tenets of educating children even within the constraints imposed by authority.
Here are some basic tenets that need to be learned by all the people in order for the humankind to sustain itself for long.  At the formal education level, these concepts should be conveyed to children, not necessarily explicitly, but be touched upon on every opportunity in many different ways of phrasing, in conjunction with any subject matter.
(1) It needs to be understood by everybody that every human being is equal in every way despite different skin color and other physical characters.  No single human race can be regarded to be superior to others or a ‘chosen’ (by God) race.  There is no such distinction in nature.
(2) We, humans, are only one of several million living species present on this planet, and are dependent for our livelihood on nature – that is, on other living organisms, the environment (ecosystems, the earth), and the sun.  We should live in harmony with nature.
(3) There are limits to the material resources on this planet.  We need to use them very judiciously in order for human civilization to survive.
(4) To satisfy the above conditions (2, 3), people have to learn to restrain their urge to obtain more or consume more and know when enough is enough.  We need to regard extravagant consumption as undesirable.  For example, one should not buy things beyond one’s capability, charging to a credit card.  It is a good thing for us to live modestly but happily.
(5) The basic economic value should not be profit but be to make happy as many people as feasible. 
(6) We have now enough, though barely, to share with and sustain everyone, so there is no need to resort to wars or other violent means to grab resources.  Cooperation and peace have to be the norm in human civilization.
(7) For now, the resources on the earth are barely enough to sustain the current large population of the human species.  But soon the population will likely exceed the carrying capacity of the earth.  In an estimate of our ecological footprint, it is said that we have already surpassed the carrying capacity of the earth a decade ago and by more than 20%.  This is not simply a population problem, but we need to look into the population of the human race, and learn to maintain it at reasonable level.
(8) War is an ultimate evil now promoted by those who gain from war, and has nothing to do with the security of people.  It is an enormous waste of human life and resources, and of course causes enormous misery.   

There are other concepts (morals) eventually to be ingrained in the human minds in order for us to sustain ourselves.  A critical thing in this regard is that children (and people in general) develop a habit to evaluate carefully what they see everyday and on every occasion, to see if it may make sense in terms of peace and sustainability.