Chapter 31: The New Paradigm Community and the Political System - a New Kind of Relationship

It is important at every stage of this Transition to be conscious that this is about the overthrow and replacement of the dysfunctional, destructive Capitalist socio-economic paradigm with a set of Paradigms and systems that truly engender a thriving human community of thriving individuals. This is not an overthrow of governmental mechanisms or functioning. It is not a negation of the Constitution, but rather an affirmation and application of its principles in the economic sphere. These are two very different things and the difference must be kept in clear perspective.

As is covered later in the chapter “One Size Does Not Fit All,” there may be countries in which the overthrow and replacement of both become inevitable. That is dependent on the country, the culture, and the situation. For example, in countries like Canada, the United States, Australia, and some others, there will probably be no need or reason to overthrow the governmental structure. In countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Russia and others suffering under oppressive dictatorships with no Constitutional protections for the people, overthrow of the government and its principles of operation may be absolutely necessary.

In countries that have a Constitution or other defining set of principles intended to safeguard human rights and some viable people-driven electoral process, there should be no need to disrupt or clash with normal governmental functioning or mechanisms for the most part.

Of course reactionary or other political factions may very well attempt to suppress the Transition or those bringing it about. This may possibly take the form of passing new laws or reinterpreting existing laws specifically to illegalize the Transition, or declaring those creating the Transition to be traitors or terrorists. Should this occur, we will need to resist firmly and uncompromisingly but never to initiate violence. This aspect of the Transition should be handled similarly to how we will respond to violence on the part of corporations and the ultra-wealthy at the top of the pyramid and their supporters attempting to suppress our Transition. CEO's and other modern Feudal lords of the economic pyramid will have to be removed from power by eliminating their role as we change the mode of socio-economic operation from the bottom up. There will be no economic pyramid for anybody to be at the top (or bottom) of.

These economically-defined power positions and hierarchies were not established by, nor have they ever been responsible to, the People. In fact these power structures often act to disempower and parasitize the People with no appeal, channel or recourse for the People to remove or restrain them. Therefore they are rogue individuals and organizations, no different in principle from drug cartels, gangs, or warlords. Their power structures, rules, and chains of command have no validity and are in fact inimical to any Constitution. As such, they must be dismantled as a cancer is excised from an otherwise healthy body.

In contrast, a government that is designed to be elected and replaced democratically and peacefully by the People, where the people have protections and the means to remove, recall, impeach, and hold elected officials responsible for their actions in office, does not need to be overthrown, even when some or all of the individuals populating it are corrupt or incompetent. Once the economic power structure is decommissioned, politicians will have to become responsive to the People if they wish to keep their jobs. There will be no ultra-wealthy neo-Feudal lords to intimidate, bribe and otherwise divert them from their intended functions.

On the other hand, when the government acts as an instrument of enforcement on behalf of the neo-Feudal lords of the Capitalist power structure, then we must peacefully but forcefully and uncompromisingly disobey and ignore them. In such instances we will refuse to comply and stand firm in our resistance, rendering them irrelevant.

In such cases, the Transition must impact those in government but not seek to overthrow the government. Rather, the greatest effect of the Transition upon government and those in it will be to free government of the dictatorship, undue influence and very strong reinforcers for corruption that arise from the power politics of the ultra-wealthy. This dynamic distorts government under Capitalist paradigms and changes its essential mission from serving the well-being of the People and the Community, to serving, advancing and enforcing the interests, power and wealth of those at the top of the Pyramid at the expense of all others. The Transition will place those who serve in government in the position of being once again responsible and accountable to only the People.

To be sure, government will change dramatically after the Transition, because the environment in which it must function, and the expectations and pressures that will be placed upon it, will transform fundamentally.

First and foremost, the reinforcers that led to corruption will largely or completely disappear. Under Capitalism, one's freedom, options and quality of life as well as the respect one is afforded are all determined by one's degree of wealth and power (or lack thereof), by one's position on the pyramid. In such an environment, corruption and distortion of priorities in government are inevitable and guaranteed. It becomes accepted and expected as normal that the ultra-wealthy have disproportionate influence on those in government.

In countries such as the United States, huge mega-corporations and other ultra-wealthy parties pay lobbyists massive amounts of money to entice and pressure politicians to serve their interests and to convince them that this is in the best interest of the country. In contrast, the vast majority of the people in these countries, the ones not at the top of the economic pyramid, do not have the means to pay top lobbyists to pressure politicians and defend or promote their needs and interests.

The typical barely-surviving citizen can only sign petitions, send letters, emails and voice messages to their representatives, President or Prime Minister. This has some impact, but psychologically it is much smaller, less compelling and more abstract than the impact of a face-to-face meeting with an actual person.

Since elected officials tend to be extremely busy, it is almost impossible to get an appointment to speak with them one-on-one. There are always vastly more people wanting to speak to them than it is possible to schedule. In practice this means that the typical citizen has almost no chance of gaining direct access to their elected officials. A typical citizen's letter, voice message, email or signature on a petition gets lost and unnoticed without ever reaching the intended recipient. At best, the politician will hear a bullet point in a quick summary in a rushed briefing to the effect that a certain number of calls, letters, or emails were received supporting or opposing X, or a petition was turned in with Y (number) of signatures calling for yada-yada. The voices of most citizens are lost in the white noise of statistics.

Yet if the CEO or Executive Vice President of a multi-billion-dollar Corporation, or any billionaire or “captain of industry” at or near the top of the economic pyramid asks to meet with these same elected officials, they will almost certainly be granted one-on-one time and be heard.

This inevitably has the effect of drowning out the voices of the great majority of members of the community in statistical white noise, while those at the top of the pyramid, the modern day Feudal lords, enjoy direct access to the ears and attention of those in government. This is yet another example of how Capitalist paradigms directly undermine any Constitutional rights and processes and directly disenfranchise all but the very few at the top of the pyramid. This is yet another way that Capitalism is directly incompatible with a free and democratic community and with government of, by and for the People.

When we add to this the inevitable disconnection that those in government experience from the People whom they are charged to serve, simply because of the logistics and mechanics of government, then we see that under Capitalist paradigms it is almost impossible for government to even come close to serving the well-being, needs and will of the People. Even without the influence and interference of the economic power structure, it is a challengingly difficult task for those in government to stay in touch with the needs of the People for whom they work.

In the post-Transition socio-economic environment, this will change drastically. Politicians and other elected officials and representatives will have to adapt. In keeping with the new Paradigm principle of dismantling hierarchical social and economic structures and processes in favor of peer-based ones, those who serve in government, law enforcement and defense will need to be explicitly and constantly reminded that their jobs and roles are to serve the People, not rule over and dictate to them.

In a community where money is irrelevant, where all citizens by default have access to all that they need and are fully empowered, politicians will not nave any need of money, "perks," or other goods and services that could be used to pressure or entice them to ally themselves to special interests or lobbies. There will be no ultra-wealthy neo-Feudal lords, corporations or other large businesses. Money will be obsolete. Since there will be no economic pyramid, no socio-economic caste or power structure, there will be no lobbyists promoting the interests of nonexistent corporations or ultra-wealthy individuals.

There may still be lobbyists from other kinds of special interest groups, both destructive and constructive: religious extremists seeking to force their understanding of morality upon everybody, or legitimate lobbies seeking to call attention to real issues such as racial and ethnic intolerance, regions and states presenting their infrastructure needs and so forth. Any lobbyists, however, will have nothing to offer to entice compliance except the merit of their cases and arguments.

All inhabitants will have equal access to be heard by those in government, since there will be no socio-economic pyramid for anybody to be at the top or bottom of. None will have more direct access than others, since the new Paradigms will enjoy as close to zero disparity as is humanly possible. There will be none who will go straight to the front of the line.

We can also anticipate that the new post-Transition paradigms will tend to give rise to a populace much more empowered, aware, informed, and confident than is the case under Capitalism. Such a populace will be less easily propagandized or manipulated, much more engaged in interacting with government and with one another. Such a populace will be inclined to insist that their elected officials or representatives do their honest best to perform the functions for which they were elected. Politicians who betray the trust of the people will have short careers and reap no benefits.

Opportunities and reinforcers for corruption will be vastly reduced. Politicians will be much more rigorously held to account for their performance of their mission to serve the well-being of the people who elected them.

The post-Transition societies will not be fertile grounds for stratification or class distinctions. The President or Prime Minister will no longer be able to treat their position as one of privilege and power, but will rather be expected to treat it as one of service, innovation and responsibility, more like an orchestra conductor than an aristocrat, manager or lord. Elected officials at all levels will be very keenly aware that their job has been made much simpler. They will be responsible to the People and only the People. Should they fail to act in accordance with that basic reality, the People will not hesitate to impeach, recall, bring charges or simply vote them out depending on the situation.

Those elected will be relieved of most of the pressures, conflicts of interest, and temptations towards corruption that currently beset and surround them. The reinforcers for betraying the public trust will be vastly reduced.

Taxation will cease to exist. It will no longer be an issue in post-Transition communities.

To be sure, there will be conflicts to deal with: how to distribute a resource that is actually, physically in limited supply when the need is actually greater than what’s available. How to deal with rising sea levels. But these kinds of issues will be resolved among peers, not between an aristocracy and a disempowered populace.

We can eagerly anticipate that politics and public service will attract very different kinds of people than it does now: ones motivated by passion for improving and safeguarding the lives of their constituents. The reinforcers will be different from now, therefore the predominating behaviors will be different and more conducive to a free, synergistic and thriving national community of empowered, engaged, largely self-realized thriving individuals in a win-win symbiotic pattern.

There will always potentially be the dangers that arise when charismatic, domineering "Type A" personalities and sociopaths manage to charm, intimidate or impress enough people to produce a dysfunctional, harmful social construct. This can theoretically happen in any political or socio-economic system.

Post-Transition communities will most likely be less vulnerable to that kind of phenomenon than Capitalist societies for several reasons.

First of all, these types of personalities tend to ascend to the highest reaches of the economic pyramid. Where there is a hierarchy, these people almost always gravitate to the top. Most Capitalistic societies do not recognize the dangerous, destructive pathologies of both the "Type A's" themselves and those who willingly fall under their influence, control and domination. In fact, Capitalist societies do not recognize, diagnose or treat these addictive disorders at all but rather enable, reinforce, lionize and glorify them as the epitome of the successful Capitalist that others strive to emulate.

This exacerbates their pathology and entrenches it as a role model, labeling those lacking those personality traits as "losers." In addition, since Capitalist societies are inherently rigidly hierarchical, those living in them are trained and conditioned from childhood to obey and defer to those above them in the hierarchy. Those low in the pyramid are taught from birth, in school and in popular culture, to respect and even venerate the hierarchical structure to the point of feeling lost or at loose ends without it. Those at the top of the pyramid are conditioned to command and lord it over others. (See the chapter on Capitalism and Education.)

In such cultures, the concept of “respect the office” is common. The implication of this concept is that even if the person in a power position is incompetent, abusive, unfit, or otherwise harmful, people are expected to respect, obey, and not challenge them because of the position they hold. This is clearly untenable. Would any sane person fail to intervene if they were a passenger on an airplane when the flight crew were discovered to be drunk, drugged, or delusional?

In such a culture, many people are predisposed to accept and fall in line with a charismatic person with Type A personality disorder. In the post-Transition community, these "Type A" personalities will be recognized, diagnosed, and treated for their psychiatric or neurological disorder, not enabled. They will not be villainized for their disability, but neither will they be enabled, any more than a person suffering from schizophrenia, paranoia, alcoholism, or any other condition.

Another factor that makes Capitalist societies more vulnerable to such dysfunctional dynamics is the way that citizens are conditioned by advertising and reinforced conformity to keep up with the latest fashions and have the latest status items. This conditioning leaves us vulnerable to be more easily manipulated via the same subtle psychological ploys and mechanisms that keep millions of people rushing off to spend their hard-earned cash and credit on the latest must-have fashion, gadget or toy as soon as they are announced with much fanfare, as surely as most people who enter a casino will gamble. The same techniques are also effective in selling pre-conditioned individuals on the rightness of a charismatic manipulator. Such personality types are instinctively adept at mastering the principles of manipulation. In a Capitalist society, there is a virtual ocean of potential converts and fans, easily pulled in by a skillfully magnetic personality, for better or for worse.

Last but not least, in a society where every individual is under siege, constantly battling against the unrelenting denial of their right to exist, unceasingly having to pay for their existence, people tend to feel overwhelmed, disempowered and vulnerable. If a strong personality comes into their midst offering or promising to guide, protect and tell them what to do to improve their situation and how, there will inevitably be a lot of followers.

After the Transition, these factors will be absent. We will still need to be alert and aware of the effects of inertia in the human psyche. Old habits, reflexes and survival mechanisms will not disappear or change overnight. The crafting of more empowering ways of living and interacting will require awareness, patience, diligence, and perseverance.

Generations who are adults at the time of the Transition will still retain the habits and conditioned reflexes acquired while living under Capitalist paradigms. These habits will persist for a time to varying degrees. Such survival mechanisms, however, will no longer be necessary, reinforced or enabled.

Assuming that we make the Transition successfully, the dysfunctional old reflexes and behaviors will not only not be reinforced, but constructive, cooperative, synergistic responses will be reinforced. According to the principles of behavioral psychology, the reinforced behaviors will gain strength and the old ones, in the absence reinforcement, will fade towards extinction over time.

Yet we will do well to address this issue publicly, openly and to make one another aware of these factors so that we can all support and assist each other in making that inner Transition. Perhaps we will develop counseling modalities to help those who find it a challenge, if there is need or demand. To generations coming of age and born after the Transition, this will not be a major issue.

One may well ask, if one is living in a country with some kind of democratic and constitutional paradigm, why go through the daunting, potentially risky task of overthrowing the socio-economic paradigm of an entire country? Why not use the democratic mechanisms already in place to establish new safeguards and protections against abuses and corruption by corporations and the ultra-wealthy when they go too far? Why not just write our representatives, sign petitions, organize peaceful protests, strikes and demonstrations, perform acts of civil disobedience, initiate referenda and express ourselves at the ballot box?

All of these are good, positive, constructive steps to take; but their effectiveness varies from place to place and time to time. In Europe and North America in the 1960's and 1970's, and in India in the 1940's and 1950's, for example, these were effective strategies to force change in the face of abusive, unresponsive, persistent political power structures and cultural attitudes. Labor unions and strikes were effective strategies to advance workers' rights in the face of abusive, hostile and unresponsive economic power structures in North America from the late 1800's until the mid-1980's. There was sufficient social and cultural orientation towards social conscience, compassion and fairness. There was a sense of urgency about social justice actively stirring in the zeitgeist, in the mass consciousness of nations and of the world.

Even though there were oppressive, corrupt and unresponsive factions in positions of power politically and economically, there was still a free and aggressive press and media with a strong professional sense of mission to seek and report the facts, the truth, regardless of who was pressuring them to bury the story, regardless of whom it pleased or angered.

In such an environment, these kinds of tactics are effective in bringing change over time and for a time.

The effectiveness of these kinds of activism, however, depend on several factors:

1) A free, aggressive, unfettered press and unblocked, uncensored Internet to get the word, the facts, the objectively true story out to the world about the issues, who is doing what, what is really happening, how and why.

2) A national and global social environment that does not suppress discussion of controversial actions and issues, that embraces meaningful, mutually-respectful dialog and debate driven on all sides by the quest to improve and enhance the well-being and quality of life of the people and backed by honest fact-finding.

3) A populace that is sensitive to and outraged by abuses of power, by injustice, inhumanity, hypocrisy, corruption, greed, violence and bullying and that will respond to such occurrences by demanding that the wrongs be righted.

4) A governmental paradigm or system that is in one way or another significantly responsive to the voices of the People.

In contrast, when these conditions are absent, such tactics tend to be ineffective.

In Nazi Germany, in the United States at the time of McCarthyism, in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in Syria under Assad, in North Korea under Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un, in Iran under either the Shah or Khomeini or any similar regime, these kinds of tactics are generally not effective.

The media are controlled by the dictatorship. Any kind of protest or dissent is vigorously, often lethally, suppressed. Protesters or strikers are killed, intimidated, persecuted or imprisoned. Whole towns have been demolished, their message and their story never heard by their countrymen. Nothing will be reported in the news, or else reporting will say that "terrorists" or "traitors" or "disruptive elements" or other “bad guys” were heroically foiled in their nefarious plans, and the public safety was protected by security forces.

Protesters, strikers and other activists can easily be portrayed as sinister criminal, terrorist, malcontent, or enemy elements to be feared and hated.

Even in the United States at the time of this writing, these traditional tactics for initiating change have been rendered largely ineffective for a number of reasons relatively new in history:

1) Corporations and ultra-wealthy neo-feudal lords have perfected the art of propaganda, which has been enhanced and made more subtle and effective through experience in advertising, to the point where the appearance and semblance of a free press is maintained while in actual practice the majority of mainstream media are themselves mega-corporations controlled by billionaires and even bigger corporations. Demonstrations, strikes, protests and the like are frequently downplayed, not reported at all, or portrayed as the acts of troublemakers or worse. 2) Americans have become desensitized to violence and all manner of abuse. Shootings of and by police, school shootings, violence among citizens, the justification of the erosion of human rights in the name of both security and business, escalating income inequality, corruption at every level and more, are accepted as normal by a major growing segment of the population. Such occurrences stir no deep responses.

The constant stress and sensory overload common in daily life, especially given the amount of violent programming (which has been shown to cause desensitization), plus frequent reporting of real world violence, corruption, disempowerment, and abuse, has gradually produced a culture of numb indifference.

The kinds of demonstrations, strikes, and civil disobedience that were so effective during the 1960's and 1970's now fall on jaded ears, eyes, minds and hearts, if they are aired at all. The pervasive level of overwhelm makes people's own stresses and struggles feel much larger than anything seen on the news. Once our personal struggle for survival has been fought on any given day, there is little or no energy or attention left for larger concerns of the community, country, or world.

We must also keep in mind that those in power have become more sophisticated in their counter-insurgency tactics. Fifth-columnists (infiltrators) working for the new Feudal Lords blend into and mingle with peaceful demonstrators to ensure that it will become violent, incoherent, and easily sloughed off and discredited. This tactic was used very effectively in 1930s Germany, when Nazi operatives disguised themselves as Communists and painted Communist slogans while setting the Reichstag (The German Parliament building) on fire. Hitler had already set the stage by publicly decrying Communists as one of the evil enemies of the German people. This staged incident of “terrorism” further solidified Hitler's base of support among normally apolitical Germans.

The extremely polarized dynamics of U.S. society at this time have already created a climate where every demonstration meets a counter-demonstration in a setting where emotions are so heavily charged that many in both camps are primed and ready for violence. Once one person throws a punch, a bottle or a taunt, the situation all too often degenerates into incoherence ending in a brawl. Needless to say that any message is lost in the fray. All that the public sees is chaos.

Laws have been introduced at the highest levels of government redefining peaceful dissent and civil disobedience as "economic terrorism," effectively nullifying freedom of both speech and assembly when it opposes those in power or their operations.

There are a plethora of distractions and diversions available to take people’s attention off of what is oppressing them and sapping their strength. Endless forms of entertainment, fashion, celebrity gossip, activities, consumer goods, drugs, alcohol, and other channels divert stressed-out people’s attention from painful realities to pleasureful, entertaining, or distracting pursuits, thus keeping large numbers of people paying and consuming rather than bringing forth necessary fundamental changes in the way things are done. Even politics is used as a distraction. People outraged by a politician’s indiscretions are not focused on the socio-economic paradigm that is disempowering and enslaving them.

These and other changes in the culture have left us little choice but to take direct action to intervene, bring the old Capitalistic paradigm to a halt, and change the way "the game" is played. It is time to boot up an entire new set of paradigms and operating principles oriented towards the empowerment and well-being of all members of the community in a mutually-supportive framework.

A currently poignant issue that needs addressing in the United States is the need for Constitutional strengthening to prevent authoritarian takeover when one party or faction controls all three branches of government. For better or for worse, the United States is a major power. It has a major impact and influence on the cultural, economic, and political affairs and direction of the world. Therefore, major shifts in the internal and external behavior of the United States has major importance. It is also currently the largest propagator of capitalism in the world. A Transition in the United States will be a major step forward in proving the superiority of the new Paradigms in a way that will inspire their replication widely across the world.

The Founders of the United States of America wrote the Constitution with safeguards, referred to as Checks and Balances, in place to prevent and guard against authoritarian takeover. For over 200 years the safeguards have functioned pretty much as intended and designed, preventing any faction of any branch of the government from becoming powerful enough to supplant and overthrow the Democratic mechanisms and establish a dictatorship.

There have been some distinctly anti-democratic, tragic digressions and atrocities, such as slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, apartheid in the Southern states, McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the Patriot Act in the wake of 9-11. Fortunately, the existence of the checks and balances prevented these dysfunctional aberrations from becoming permanent and systemic. Until the current situation, the American people and government always responded to these humanitarian crises by passing laws and Constitutional amendments that expanded and clarified the guarantee of civil and human rights, freedoms, and protections. It is clear that the intention of the Founders was to create a free, democratic, empowered society governed of, by and for the People, free from any form of despotic rule. They did not fully succeed due to the limitations in the awareness of their times; but subsequent laws and Amendments have deepened the commitment to human rights and dignity. Slavery was abolished. Women were finally given the right to vote. Apartheid was abolished. Employees and consumers gained protections. Discrimination on many bases was made explicitly illegal. This has been the trend, until now.

At the time of this writing, these checks and balances are being systematically compromised, subverted and breached in ways that directly threaten the Constitution and the principles of government of, by and for the People intended by the Founders and fought for by both soldiers and civilians for all of these two centuries and more. Clearly, the United States is in a situation that the Founders could not and did not foresee, much less provide fail-safes against.

The two legislative houses, the executive and the judicial branches of government, are structured and designed to act as checks on one another's power to ensure that the principles of the Constitution are followed. Until the current situation, this construct has worked well for the most part. It appears, however, that the Founders were not able to foresee the current scenario in which a focused, well organized, ideologically fanatical group conspires to gain control of the executive and legislative branches of government and use that position to gain control of the judicial branch, the Supreme Court.

As long as competing factions or parties are distributed throughout the mechanisms and institutions of government, they tend to keep each other in check. In the current scenario, however, we see a coordinated takeover of all three branches of the United States government by a fanatical party driven by the addiction to power and money. As in the Feudalistic regimes of the European Middle Ages, this faction is using religious extremism melded with personality-centered distortions of patriotism to manipulate large segments of the population. As did Hitler in Germany, they are using racial and ethnic hatred and xenophobia to direct free-floating anxieties of the most psychologically unstable among the population against scapegoated target populations in order for them not to focus on the regime itself.

Instead of the different governmental branches keeping each other in check, they are reinforcing and rubber-stamping each other in their internal assault on Democratic processes while maintaining the superficial appearance of democracy. This attack upon the Constitution and the American people comes from those doing the bidding of the neo-feudal lords at the top of the economic pyramid. Their mission and intent is to consolidate and absolutize their power.

This is clearly visible in a plethora of expressions and dynamics occurring in the Federal government in Washington at the time of this writing. Most importantly, with the Presidency occupied by a domineering extremist member of the same party and ideology as a majority in both Houses, these players have used tactics that they themselves only recently condemned and effectively blocked when used by the opposition, to replace vacant seats in the Supreme Court with judges strongly rooted in their same ideology in order to achieve control of the Court as well. Their adherents will constitute a majority of that highest court in the land, who will uphold and justify their agenda and encode it into law. As long as those political dynamics prevail, given this group’s strict, focused and strongly enforced culture of “party loyalty” above all, Congress and the Senate will continue to work in unison with the individual occupying the White House. When legal challenges to these laws, actions and policies arise, the Supreme Court will support and uphold the political agenda. An unprecedented degree of emphasis is being placed on “Executive Privilege” and immunity, paving the way towards de-facto dictatorship. Thus while the appearances and forms of democratic checks and balances remains intact, the substance and functioning have been utterly repurposed and restructured to support and enforce the power of the neo-feudal lords and their corporations at the top of the Pyramid, at the expense of the rights, power, safety and well-being of the overwhelming majority of the People.

Clearly, the original checks and balances are in urgent need of reinforcement, fine-tuning, and expansion, once the current coup is stopped, which it most certainly must be. The Transition will strongly facilitate this. The end of Capitalism and the elimination of both currency and hierarchical socio-economic power structures will also eliminate the power of these parties. There will be no ultra-wealthy overlords to call the shots, to bribe or intimidate elected officials. The voices of the People will be the only ones being raised for politicians to hear.

Yet it would be over-simplistic to assume that the end of Capitalism will be the end of all potential abuses or corruptions. In countries like the United States, attention will have to be paid to the vulnerability, exposed by the current crisis, to a potential takeover of all branches of government by an extremist faction that is well organized, well-coordinated, well-disciplined, ruthless and well-planned. Constitutional checks and balances will have to be fortified, with more safeguards spelled out in clear language.

Avenues to explore might include mandating that criminal charges be brought against any elected official who is found guilty of a crime, with no exceptions, limits on presidential pardon power, mandatory re-do of any election that later shows evidence of having been hacked or otherwise compromised, and inviolable and unambiguously defined protections of parties investigating potential criminal acts on the part of elected officials. In order to strengthen checks and balances on the power attainable by any faction, it might be wise to mandate new elections in the event that one party or faction gains control of executive and both legislative branches, or perhaps to create and define new checks and balances in the form of a nonpartisan, independent and broadly empowered oversight body tasked with identifying, publicizing and taking action necessary to stop corruption and anti-democratic abuses of power. Other beneficial changes will include term limits, publicly accessible video and audio recordings of all interactions among elected and appointed officials, guaranteed free equal time in the media for all candidates, a ban on all campaign contributions, a freeze on all Supreme Court nominations at any time when one faction has disproportionate control, rigorous and enforceable standards of unbiased, Constitutionally-centered judicial orientation in nominated judges, an explicit and automatic ban on any legislation, executive order or judicial decision whose basis or motivation is demonstrably religious in nature thereby constituting an attempt to ignore separation of Church and State, and more. Until the transition, it might improve the situation to pass a citizens’ referendum or new law specifying that all elected and appointed officials must live on a few percent lower than the median income of the people in their constituency, along with freezing of all of their personal, financial, and other assets for the duration of their term, with no expense account, Government car, chauffeur, private jet or other perks. Once the Transition is done, these issues will be moot.

Now that we have become aware of vulnerabilities that the Founders had no way to anticipate, it is vital that we expand the checks and balances to counter those vulnerabilities. We also would be wise to consider how to counter a scenario in which a totalitarian extremist faction stages a coup by infiltrating both dominant parties in order to gain control of the executive and legislative branches of government, regardless of which party wins, even while maintaining the appearance of balanced democracy.

In all the world it is time, indeed past time, for the Transition to take an active, aggressive form, to set a new standard and new precedents for human socio-economic interactions and for the very staging of a fundamental paradigm change. To wait is to become weaker and less able to effect a Transition. The upward redistribution of wealth, power and pretty much everything to the upper reaches of the Pyramid push the vast majority of people closer and closer to a depleted condition lacking sufficient stamina or energy to embark upon a Transition. Capitalism has spread around the world like a cancer. Humanity is in the end-stage of this metastatic condition. If we do not Transition soon, we may face a new Dark Feudal Age that could last hundreds or thousands of years.