Third Saturday Seminar 2013-2014
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom

Session 07

Governance-Politics-Wars
The Social Contract Revisited

Curt Gibby

Saturday, 26 April 2014 (fourth Saturday)
9:30AM til 12:00 NOON

 Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000 

Carl Sagan: Some part of our being knows this (the universe) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Saturday we will take on Governance-Politics-War (What do our leaders think we want? Do they care what we think? Do they think at all or do they just follow the bread crumbs left by the 1%)

One of the key ideas that came out of the last Enlightenment was the Social Contact between the government (or state) and the people.  The people are not vassals of the state, rather, the state is the servant, created and obligated to provide competent governance (management) for the benefit and security of all the people as the people may direct through democratic process and that ALL individuals have certain inalienable rights and freedoms that cannot be violated even by the agencies of democratic actions.  These principles are embodied in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution with it’s Bill of Rights.

Now the issue for us to discuss is: Do we still have a working “Social Contract”?  Is (it) our government (and those who we pay to run it) our servants or our overseers?

We will start talking about current the state of our world, and try to figure out: WHO WANTED THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN? Was this brought about by the WILL OF A FREE PEOPLE (US)?

Our starting point will be the recent events in The Ukraine.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. 

One might have thought that prosperous democracies might have then emerged from the former satellite republics no longer under the thumb of  the USSR.  What happened?

Background- The Budapest Memorandum

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is a political agreement signed in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.

The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine as well as those of Belarus and Kazakhstan. As a result Ukraine gave up the world’s third largest nuclear weapons stockpile between 1994 and 1996.

The Black Swan* has landed in the Ukraine, after making stops in Sochi and The Crimea.

A year ago who even could point to the Ukraine on a map?  Who would have thought it would have out attention today? Or that Vladimir Putin would for the time being anyway be in the catbird seat (Can you spell “Syria” and or” Bashar Assad” who according to all predictions would be on the way out instead to campaigning for reelection.)

Some say that Putin thinks destabilizing the Ukraine would distract attention from the $30 billion of the $50 billion raised for the Sochi Olympics that apparently wound up in the pockets of Putin and his cronies.

People ask if Putin has a plan.   I think the intelligent response is: Putin doesn’t need a plan.  He has all the cards, and it appears the West doesn’t seem to have any or any that we are willing to use.  Russia’s economy is about the size, $2.2 trillion, and shape of Italy’s**. The EU and US with a combined GDP of $33 trillion just  keep staring at each other. Since almost all of Western Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia who has kept the price low to discourage competition, and Russian oligarchs have billions of dollars stashed in western banks, the EU doesn’t seem too eager to play the sanctions game.

If anything. At the moment Putin just wants to keep eastern Europe unstable, and the rest of the world off balance while he grows his ego and pays back slights real and imagined to him and Russia.  This doesn’t mean that he intends to start a war, but he might precipitate something he can’t control.

Good news for the Russians in Crimea? (We’ll see) Dmitry Medvedev, who led a delegation of Cabinet ministers to Crimea, pledged that Russia will quickly boost salaries and pensions there and pour in resources to improve education, health care and local infrastructure. A special government ministry has been created to oversee Crimea’s development. Dmitry Medvedev, who led a delegation of Cabinet ministers to Crimea, pledged that Russia will quickly boost salaries and pensions there and pour in resources to improve education, health care and local infrastructure. A special government ministry has been created to oversee Crimea’s development. (Where does the money come from?)  See the CBS news story here.

Anyway, What can we learn from the experience of the Ukraine about the value of a working social contract regarding our future?

Just like the former Soviet Republics suffer from the dominance and exploitation by corrupt mafia and oligarchs and the marginalization of minorities instead of building a national consciousness; have we not been led down a garden path by the industrial and financial interests which have profited from wars which were never truly indented to produce any tangible benefit to the American People?

*The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

** List of countries by GDP

Here are a few links to articles that you might want to read or skim over.

“We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It“: Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Former U.S. Ambassador: Behind Crimea Crisis, Russia Responding to Years of “Hostile” U.S. Policy (viewed last session)

Confronting Putin’s Russia, By MICHAEL A. McFAUL MARCH 23, 2014

The decision by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to annex Crimea ended the post-Cold War era in Europe. Since the late Gorbachev-Reagan years, the era was defined by zigzags of cooperation and disputes between Russia and the West, but always with an underlying sense that Russia was gradually joining the international order. No more.

Our new era is one defined by ideological clashes, nationalistic resurgence and territorial occupation — an era in some ways similar to the tragic periods of confrontation in 20th-century Europe. And yet there are important differences, and understanding the distinction will be critical to a successful American foreign policy in the coming decades. (keep reading)

As usual we will start out with Current Events

Possible Current Events Topics include: 

Russia’s fait accompli in the Crimea

The Mysterious Missing Flight  370

Syria – Iran – Iraq – Russia – UN – Rebels (Good and Bad) – etc. Refugees

Privacy vs Security – NSA – The Constitution

Enlightenment 2.0 Syllabus

Reference/Reading Materials
To help you get started may I suggest reading or skimming some the following short Wikipedia Articles: (your own  sources are welcome too.)

1. Age of Enlightenment  (First page)
2. Islamic Golden Age (Again, the first page)

The following short sections of the Outline of the History of Western Civilization:

3. Renaissance and Reformation 
4. The Reformation 
5. Rise of Western Empires 
6. Dark Ages  
7. List of Revolutions
   (worth scanning to see just to see how being a revolutionary is a good business,
   also a convenient list of historic milestones in the ascent of man.)   
8. Econ 000(Work in progress, will be updated)

About the A.L.L. Spring Session :

If you have  not looked at the LSC  A.L.L. Spring Schedule yet, you find the all the programs from all the LSC campuses are published in one book.  The LSC Montgomery schedule starts on page 28.  The Third Saturday Seminar will be found on Page 37.


You will find a rich choice of other A.L.L. courses to choose from in the Spring schedule but for your convenience here is ours.  Please note that due to the vagaries of the Spring Holidays, 3 out of 4 meetings will fall on the 4th Saturday.  Please Mark your Calendar.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

See you Saturday!
Curt Gibby
Director,