Barnett Weekly

The scientific method requires that to be called truth, theory be confirmed through experiment and yield quantifiable and replicable results. Without such, theory will simply remain theory and will fade into obscurity. 

When it comes to quantum mechanics (dealing with the very smallest forms of “matter” or fields) and cosmology (dealing with the largest of matter or fields) many theories cannot be tested at all. In observing the very smallest bits, the difficulty rests with the absence of observational tools tiny enough to use, and the side effects of observation itself. The largest matter or fields of deep space involve distances so enormous that while science can observe, it cannot induce an experiment intended to generate a response; by the time an answer arrives we will all be gone. Thus, quantum and cosmological theories are rather metaphysical, involving probability of outcome instead of direct observation. Despite these limitations, over the centuries, science has nonetheless settled upon immutable physical “laws” that are consistent and apply universally.

One of these laws is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Another is that measurable interaction is reduced as the distance between massive objects increases. Ironically, two highly verifiable and replicable experiments generate results that run counter to these scientific truths.

A photon is an elementary “particle” associated with electromagnetism. The light and heat we enjoy from the sun is made up of photons and makes life possible on earth. Like other electromagnetic wave/particles, photons travel at the speed of light, 186,282 miles per second. Moreover, photons have a measurable property physicist’s call “spin” which is detectable and modifiable. When a photon is experimentally “split” in two, sending each “twin” photon traveling in the opposite direction at the speed of light, a remarkable and unexplainable effect occurs. When one of the twin photons is caused to change its spin, the other twin changes its spin as well. In other words, though traveling at the speed of light in the opposite direction, the split photons remain linked and in a way not understood, continue to remain in “sync.” This means (a) that some form of “communication” is happening faster than the speed of light, or (b) that some other as yet mysterious and unknown interdependent force is at play.

The other experiment involves a pendulum. When a pendulum is set in motion oriented in a straight line towards a celestial object like the sun, over time, (taking into consideration the rotation of the earth) the orienting object can be observed to have moved its position in relation to the pendulum. Remarkably, celestial objects that do not seem to move in relation to the pendulum are in fact those that are most distant from it. Since we know that all objects in space are in motion, the paradox of “Foucault’s Pendulum” is that the most distant objects appear to have a local stabilizing effect on the pendulum, an eerie interrelatedness that defies explanation.

These two experiments point to the profound and ever-present interdependence of all things, a unity that belies the “separateness” of our sensory observations and mental constructs. Most spiritual traditions speak of the truth of this unity. Ironically, as it delves ever more deeply into the true nature of things, modern science encounters a paradoxical truth that is precisely the same.

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While walking with my friend Stanley a few months ago, I happened upon an orphaned hardball in the gutter. It’s been 45 years since I held a hardball, sensed the stitches snaking around the leathery surface and grasped its perfect hand-held size.

I tossed the ball to Stanley. “When’s the last time you played catch?” He caught it in his right hand. “I still have my mitt,” he replied and tossed the hardball back. “Answer the question,” I pursued, tossing underhand to him. “You want play catch? Fine, I’ll find my mitt. Can you find yours?” “Sorry, gone long ago,” I confessed. “I have two,” he nodded, “I’ll find them.” We walked on.

Two weeks later, walking again, Stanley announced that he had found the mitts. “They need oil,” he proclaimed. I began to sense that behind his businesslike exterior lurked a baseball nut. “OK, oil. I can oil a mitt,” I offered. “That’s not enough; you have to oil it, put the ball into the pocket and wrap a couple of rubber bands around it.” It was not a statement, it was a command. OK, coach, I thought.

As a boy I was a lousy baseball player. I could hit well, but I was nervous on the field and when it came covering the bases, I was poor. Back then, good or bad, you played. My father didn’t help much; one year he volunteered to coach my 5th grade team. He was fired for letting everybody on the team pitch in every game because he thought it was fair. Athletic competition, it seems, runs not in my genes.

One afternoon I spied a cardboard box sitting outside our door. Inside was a mitt, dry and flat and lonely for a ball. “OK, now what?” I asked Stanley when next we spoke. “We oil, we shape, and then when the rain stops, we start spring training.” He left a small bottle of Rawling’s Glovolium oil at my front door a few days later.

“We must have jerseys,” I suggested on the phone, “Sonoma Alter Kakers.” Stanley and I were both raised Jewish, and this struck us both as terribly funny. “Alter Kakers it is,” he cackled, “Oil your mitt.” The mitt was dry; no matter how much oil I used, I could not make the leather shine. I noticed that the rawhide holding the web was broken at the edges. “That mitt fielded a lot of grounders,” he pronounced when I told him of the defect, “a lot of balls dug out of infield dirt.”  Stanley’s youth was in my hand.

The big day finally arrived, a Tuesday morning in late April. We walked across the street to the vacant lot. The skies were dark, and despite April’s dryness, threatened rain. “The game may be rained out,” I joked. Inside I hoped it might come true. Would I still be lousy? After all these years why would my throwing arm improve? “Take the field. Just throw the ball. Relax.” Stanley was punching his fist into his glove. “Not too far today,” I croaked, “it’s been a very long time.” And then we played catch while it rained.

Walking back, soaking wet and happy, a neighbor saw us with our mitts, and grinned. “You kids are gonna be in big trouble when you get home.”

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We live in an accelerated age, one in which each change hastens the next. It may seem like the world is moving faster, but it is really karma that is accelerating. Karma is simply the law of cause and effect, and as the causes increase in speed so do their effects. And amid the distraction and flurry of such rapid change it’s easy to lose sight of greater fundamental shifts underlying the clutter of our lives.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, some American’s believed that we had entered a unipolar age of the single superpower able to extend its influence and might across the globe indefinitely. To the contrary, the United States now finds itself spending billions in a global war while both China and The European Union, without the financial burden of maintaining a world-wide military presence, are quickly consolidating relationships with other regions, effectively leaving the U.S. out in the cold. The Euro’s increased value against the dollar has contributed to our financial uncertainty. Events like the sub-prime mortgage crisis highlight the fragility of our economy.

In every age there have been empires, superpowers that flexed muscles and expanded influence and control across borders and oceans. Some lasted for many hundreds of years, while others endured for shorter periods. What is undeniable, however, is that all empires decline and that in time even the most powerful cannot maintain supremacy. As we look at the decline of empires, certain characteristics repeatedly arise. Historian Morris Berman has documented a consistent pattern of decline, and its signs are sure indication that fundamental change is in the offing.

Sign One: Accelerating social and economic inequality – In common parlance, this includes the shrinking and disappearance of the middle class and the accumulation of wealth into an ever smaller number of hands. The growing lower class becomes a permanent underclass, racked by crime and disease.

Sign Two: Declining investment – This results in decaying infrastructure due to lack of investment in its rehabilitation and replacement, erosion of manufacturing capacity and the coincident disenfranchisement of labor and employment benefits.

Sign Three: Reduced literacy, critical thinking skills and intellect – Education, short-changed of funds, results in declining academic skills, depriving society of future leaders and innovators and producing a poorly motivated workforce focused on entertainment and purely material gain.

Sign Four: Spiritual emptiness – Virtue and ethics are replaced with greed and fear as primary motivators. Addictive behaviors focused on drugs, alcohol, sex and gambling proliferate while community cohesion declines.

These common signs of decline are not particularly associated with an empire’s technological advancement nor form of government. Historically, signs such as these are observed in the decline of all empires, whether Roman, Chinese, English, Russian or, dare I say, American.

America is facing a difficult period of transition. Empire decline does not mean cultural extinction; England, for example, is still a major economic force, but no longer an Empire. The United States has had a very successful past century, but in this day and age of accelerated karma, that is a very long time. The challenge for America now is to honestly recognize its strengths and weaknesses, and begin to plan for a new and entirely different role in the world. With luck, we might just find that the end of empire’s not so very bad after all.

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True understanding of the vast workings of the economy are reserved to those who have mastered the perfection of financial wisdom, bestowed upon them by the great masters of Wall Street. These masters have passed down their wisdom through endless transactions, mergers, acquisitions and accumulations, and those anointed by them with the secret knowledge rarely tell others. From time to time, however, they descend from their exalted heights and share insight with mere laymen. This is a recounting of such an encounter.

Thus have I heard, once the Anointed One Secretary Paulson was dwelling in Congress together with a great gathering of Senators and a great gathering of Representatives. At that time, the Anointed One entered the testimony called Informing the Electeds, and at the same time, noble Ben Bernanke, Bank Chairman Reserve Chairman, while also testifying, saw in this way: he saw that the economy was empty of self-nature.

Then, through the power of the Secretary, venerable committee leader Chris Dodd said to noble Ben Bernanke, Bank Chairman Reserve Chairman, “How should a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to survive in this economy protect their money?”

Addressed in this way, noble Ben Bernanke, Bank Chairman Reserve Chairman said to venerable committee leader Chris Dodd, “O’ Chris Dodd, a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to protect their money should see in this way: seeing the economy as empty of self-nature. Money is emptiness, and emptiness is money. Money is no other than emptiness, and emptiness is no other than money. In the same way, gold, silver, platinum and bank notes are empty. Thus, Chris Dodd, all economies are emptiness. There are no interest bearing notes, there is no debt and no repayment, there is no default and no bankruptcy, there is no wealth and no poverty. In emptiness there is no lender, no borrower, no credit and no creditor; no bills, no cash, no bonds, no stocks, no instruments; no economy, no end of the economy, no loss, no gain, no profit, no end of profit, no attainment and no non-attainment.”

“Therefore, since the economy has no attainment, the investor abides in the knowledge of the privilege of money. Since there is no misunderstanding, there is no fear. He transcends poverty and attains wealth nirvana. All the economists of the three times, by means of the true nature of money, fully realize true complete financial enlightenment.”

“Therefore the neo-liberal economic slogan, the slogan of great insight, the unsurpassed slogan, the unequalled slogan, the slogan that cures all financial suffering should be known as truth, since there is no deception. The neo-liberal slogan is said in this way:

‘Oh, get it, get it, get the money! If just the wealthy get the money, so be it.’

Thus one should practice the neo-liberal slogan.”
Then the Secretary arose from his testifying and addressed noble Ben Bernanke, Bank Chairman Reserve Chairman, saying, “Thus it is, o’ son of noble family, thus it is. One should embrace the neo-liberal slogan just as you have said and all the wealthy will rejoice.”
When the Anointed One said this, venerable committee leader Chris Dodd, noble Ben Bernanke, Bank Chairman Reserve Chairman, that whole congress and Wall Street, with its brokers, dealers and rich bankers rejoiced and praised the words of the Anointed One.

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When I first joined the Sierra Club in 1975 I fully understood that being labeled an “environmentalist” was not too far from being labeled an “anarchist.” This was, after all, in the era when “tree-hugger” was not a compliment, and many thought that recycling was about riding used bicycles. Despite the considerable impacts of Rachel Carson and John Muir, the environment and things ecological were not main-stream, and those of us who gravitated to honoring and protecting Mother Earth were often classified as little more than whacked-out hippies.

There was a certain noble pride in being viewed as an outsider. Like Don Quixote dueling windmills, (dreaming the “impossible dream” as Broadway envisioned the Man of La Mancha) it felt good to be on the side of nature fighting the good fight against an implacable foe. As the maw of 20th century industry continued to grind and mine the earth, clear cut forests, spew pollutants into the air and dump uncountable tons of chemical waste into rivers and oceans, we environmentalists remained a feisty group, working and agitating for new legislation and regulation, with only limited success.

Called extremists in the press and marginalized by politicians, we satisfied ourselves with small victories, while at the same time holding our green flag high. New ideas, it seems, almost always arise at the extremes, the creative edge of culture where risks are taken and deep inquiries are made. It is rarely at the center that radical ideas are formed, just as the Apple computer began in Steve Wozniak’s garage and not at IBM. Many ideas that begin at the extremes fail and disappear, and this is the nature of inhabiting that uncertain space. However, other ideas at the edge are intrinsically good, true and beautiful, gradually seep towards the center and over time fully establish their legitimacy and acceptance. Such is the nature of environmentalism.

Today, industry is falling all over itself to appeal to the environmental aspirations of America. This occurred in Europe many years earlier, and it has taken a while for corporate America to catch up and get onboard, but onboard they are climbing. Chevron has spent millions to reposition its image as a “People Energy” company doing right by nature. Costco, Wal-Mart and Safeway are now the largest retailers of organic food. From clothing companies to deodorant makers, being identified with positive environmental values has taken center stage.

There are those environmentalists who are confused and suspicious about all this, and not without reason. Manipulation of public opinion through labeling and other marketing gimmicks is common. Yet, overall, this trend represents a significant victory of ideas that the environmental movement has always wanted, and ironically now that it has happened some have difficulty accepting it. Certainly, many problems still exist; regulation and policy are still grievously inadequate to meet the ecological difficulties we face. But it is a victory, nonetheless, and if it is to deepen, the environmental movement needs to accept its new membership without resentment. Politicians of all stripes have joined the cause, and this too should be seen as a great advance for society, rather than a mere tussle for power or influence.

When it comes to environmentalism a truth is revealed: Ideas do not become great – they are born that way.

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