If Then

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The other day mariner had a conversation with a member of the electorate. This member happened to be a Trumpist. They were complaining about the Fascist state of affairs in the United States because the Government said everyone had to leave jobs, stay home, wear self-deprecating masks, etc. The Trumpist was echoing the popular complaint going around that uses 40,000 car deaths and people can still drive cars . . . why can’t 150,000 deaths occur from virus and people can still work.

Mariner responded in a sympathetic tone that he understood the Trumpist’s sentiments but mariner didn’t understand the Modus Ponens (If–then) logic that relates car deaths to virus deaths. Mariner suggested a different argument:

“A similar argument that relates to the virus constraints would be: The Constitution says all men are created equal but the Government can’t stop me from denigrating black people. Further, the Declaration of Independence says every man has the unalienable right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness so the government can’t stop me from working.”

“But,” mariner continued, “it seems immoral to say just because we let people die in cars that we should also let people die from the virus when, unlike a car accident, death from the virus can be avoided. That’s why the car-virus comparison doesn’t work.”

“You ought to be a lawyer,” the Trumpist said, “and it doesn’t change the fact that we live under a Fascist government.”

Politics can be fun . . . . . and depressing.

Ancient Mariner

 

About Communism

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Communism in the West has been associated with foment, antigovernment vitriol and suppression of the people. Blame this view on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Joseph Stalin and Senator Joseph McCarthy. Marx and Engels took the bait that Rousseau took during the French Revolution: trying to write a solution to tyranny by doing away with authority altogether.

Conversely, true unadulterated communism existed in Asia for centuries – beyond the intrusion of emperors and warlords – and still does in pockets of the continent. To clear the mind of all the consternation, remember the root word ‘commune’. Many may remember the movement of the hippies in the 1970s when communes supported nearly one million citizens. Today, the commune has reduced itself to one family at a time and is called ‘living off the grid’.

Unlike capitalism and socialism, cash flow doesn’t flow very far. In fact, the less cash the better. If a person visited Taiwan in 1990, their first impression would be that for the seventh richest nation in the world, there seemed to be no money on the streets or in local commerce. Unlike capitalism and socialism, the nation’s wealth came from the citizenry who put away any cash for a rainy day rather than reinvesting in local appearances, AKA classism.

Communism depends on communal participation and is heavily influenced by extended family obligation. Sustainability is the primary objective, not profitability. For example, a specific sauce in China, dou-chi, has been made by hand by the same families for centuries. Recipes can be traced back to the Han Dynasty (200 BCE). Very popular in China today, one would think production of dou-chi would have succumbed to more industrial processes – but not in communist regions where family, labor and product are bound into a tightknit culture that functions with very little cash flow. Sharing to sustain life is preferred to using cash.

Visiting a communist region shows how inconvenient cash really is and probably exists only, as the old story goes, because it is easier than carrying sheep around. One also notices that cash is an expensive commodity to maintain. When the reader thinks of communism, think of off the grid homesteaders – that’s pure communism.

Class and elitism are bad words in communism. Karl Marx even disliked the idea of personal property. Under communism, it isn’t how much property one owns (if one owns any); it’s the contribution to the ‘commune’ which in early millennia was virtually all of China away from cities and sea travel.

As a national philosophy in today’s world, communism couldn’t operate successfully; any trade that occurs between nations isn’t tit for tat because everyone’s trying to make a dollar, not dou-chi. Nevertheless, in the pockets where it flourishes, peace and wellbeing are simpler to achieve.

Ancient Mariner

The Beginning

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May 4, 1970 was the beginning of mariner’s disillusionment with all things politic, including the citizens. His skeptical attitude remains with him today. It was the shooting to death of four Kent State college students and wounding of nine others by the Ohio National Guard. These assassins weren’t every day police, who even today can be expected to do such things; these were part of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Laurel Krause, whose 19-year old sister was killed, wrote on March 7, 2014 “It has been 44 years, and the U.S. government still refuses to admit that it participated in the killing of four young students at Kent State. There has not been a credible, independent, impartial investigation into Kent State. No group or individual has been held accountable.”

One can write all the US Constitutions they want; nothing constrains bias, prejudice and bigotry. The reaction of conservatives was that the students deserved it. They were the same bunch that today rebels against shelter-in-place. They were the same bunch that today rapes children while priests. They were the same bunch that today denies human value by denying health care to those who need it. They were the same bunch that today divides Christianity into racist and elitist factions. They were the same bunch that hoards wealth while thousands die in the US from starvation and disease. They were the same bunch that today elected Donald. They were and are the electorate.

Ancient Mariner

 

Hola

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Recent developments in South America have upended the United States’ historical — and often misguided — tendency to lump the region into a one-size-fits-all policy. A politically and economically muscular Brazil, the rise of an anti-American bloc of countries led by Venezuela, and the emergence of economic and even political extraregional rivals in the hemisphere have created a more diverse, independent and contentious region for the United States.


But the reports of the United States’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. Economically and politically, the U.S. remains the leader in what is admittedly a much-changed, more assertive region. What is now necessary, however, is a long-overdue rethink of U.S. policy toward South America.


Meanwhile, South American countries have not stood around waiting for the United States to fill the resulting void. Economically within the region, the U.S. has been losing market share. In 2011, China replaced the U.S. as the major trading partner for Brazil and Chile. At the same time, China has signed free trade agreements or trade deals with Chile, Peru, Cuba and Costa Rica, while providing a series of concessionary loans to Venezuela and Ecuador. Even Washington’s greatest South American ally, Colombia, has refused to wait, signing a free trade agreement with Canada and launching negotiations for a free trade agreement with China. [World Politics Review]


A mariner fantasy for most of his life is the integration of the two Americas, North and South, and throw in Australia and New Zealand. What a trade powerhouse that would be. One continent is in the northern hemisphere, the other in the southern hemisphere – a boon to 12-month agricultural GDP. South America has oil, too, but it leads in amounts of rare minerals like Lithium. In South America, weather similar to the Gulf Coast is as large as the continental United States. In reference to the last post about the Pacific Rim, ten nations from Mexico to Argentina have coasts on the Pacific Ocean – and China knows it.


Two things interfere with collaboration: social history and racism. The United States has been too interested in the northern hemisphere and its cultural links with old world nations. Europe launched the existence of the United States in 1607. That liaison has run its course as new economic and technical forces are reshaping global economics and international policy.


Mariner doubts the US social image of anything south of Florida has changed since Hemingway lived in Cuba and politically since Castro was the dictator. Even Puerto Rico and Hispaniola get short shrift. Otherwise, as Donald would suggest, they are non-white immigrants. The literary relationship is little more than Carmen Miranda and “Don’t cry for me Argentina.” However, several professional tennis players have been quite successful in the US.


But. The coronavirus has reset the totalizator. Overnight new odds and probabilities have become real and immediate which otherwise would have taken a decade to emerge. Momentarily up in the air is how to deal with world recession; that certainly will have an effect on international relations. The disruption has had social ramifications as well because citizen pressure on governments has forced awareness of how incompetent governments have been at managing the wellbeing of the citizenry. The virus has forced to center stage the indigent, helpless and marginally threatened part of the population and indirectly has highlighted growing plutocracy and corporate greed.


Further, the virus has stopped dead the functioning of the job market. This will allow faster adaptation to artificial intelligence and change the way citizens work almost immediately instead of gradually.


It seems a perfect time to revisit and restructure the US relationship with everything in the western hemisphere below 20°N.


. . . and before global warming really grabs our attention!


Ancient Mariner

Over There . . .

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In a desperate attempt to escape the gravity of the Trump-news broadcasting conglomerate, mariner has traveled to distant lands – a part of the planet where Donald is a sideshow. As a straightforward example, note this book review covered in a British news outlet:

“In it Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, highlights an emerging formation on the geopolitical map: the Indo-Pacific, a growing web of alliances centered on the “Quad” of India, Japan, Australia and the US, but also taking in a crescent of maritime states in eastern, south-eastern and southern Asia. Looser and more multipolar than other such formations, it is unified by the quest to balance, dilute and absorb Chinese power. “The Indo-Pacific is both a region and an idea: a metaphor for collective action, self-help combined with mutual help,” writes Medcalf. Two months on from its publication, virtually all of the trends that his book draws together have advanced.”[1]

North America not only has a shoreline on the Pacific, it has been drawn into Pacific Rim activity since the explorer Jorge Álvares reached southern China in 1513.[2] The US involvement in Asia is dominated by wars. Consider: The Korean Expedition 1871, acquisition of Samoa 1898, Spanish American War 1898 and 1913, Boxer Rebellion 1898, World War I 1917, World War II 1939, Korean War 1950, Laotian Civil War 1953, Viet Nam War 1955, 1965, 1974, Communist insurgency in Thailand 1965 and Cambodian Civil War 1967.

As Medcalf points out in his book, things have changed. In the part of the world fronted on the Pacific Rim, China has grown to be a super power in the midst of many smaller nations that easily can be dominated by China. The reader may recall an effort in 2016 called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Twelve nations signed on but the agreement failed to be ratified by the US. The countries were Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States.

The TPP concept of an international trade agreement that assigned an economic role to each nation up front was a new turn in international relationships that heretofore were variable agreements subject to tariffs, internal politics and market activity. Still, many criticized the agreement for allowing business interests to ignore or supersede traditional national rights.

Americans are not accustomed to paying attention to India. However, India is a fellow ‘sumo giant’ along with China[3]. Together, India and China represent thirty-six percent of the world’s population; of every three humans on earth, one of them is an Indian or a Chinaman.

The United States ranks third in land mass and population, but ranks first in GDP at 21.44 trillion. China is second at 14.14 trillion and India is fifth with 2.94 trillion but has the fastest growing GDP in the world.

Mariner hopes his data profile may invite readers to invest time and interest in a part of the world that truly will dominate future centuries regardless of treaties. Already it can be seen that Europe and the Middle East will not have the clout to compete with the Sumo League. For the first time, the center of world civilization may be the Pacific Rim.

In any case, mariner had a great time visiting the ‘other’ world. Donald who?

Ancient Mariner

[1] Indo-Pacific Empire, China, America and the Conquest for the World’s Pivotal Region by Rory Medcalf,    Manchester University Press ISBN: 978-1-5261-5078-3

[2] An interesting side note, a Chinese adventurer named Hwui Shan crossed the Pacific to Mexico in 458 AD.

[3] In 2018, population of China is 41 million more than India. Due to higher population growth of India, margin between these two countries is coming down quickly. And in 2024, India will have more people than China with approximately 1.44 billion people.

The Facts, Ma’am

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Mariner would like to contribute to the effort to defeat Covid-19. There are three valuable, fact driven sources for information on the virus:

https://www.usa.gov/coronavirus for fiscal procedures, enforcement policies and other actions taken by governments.

https://www.coronavirus.gov for medical and descriptive information.

https://www.newsy.com/categories/us/ for factual information on statistics and newsworthy activity. On DISH, see channel 283 or on ROKU, see NEWSY. Of specific importance are the factual presentations of New York Governor Cuomo, usually in late morning hours.

Also as a contribution to the effort against Covid-19, DO NOT ACCEPT INFORMATION OFFERED BY DONALD TRUMP’S PRESS BRIEFING! Largely, it is defensive crybaby arguments, campaign snippets, and undependable ‘facts’ that may be offered one day and retracted the next. The overall effect of this source is agitation, a tone that separates the public rather than unifying it, and a blatant cry for approval of Donald.

By the way, mariner’s Non Sequitur desk calendar is a fine source of wisdom:

Ancient Mariner

Ennui

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Being a viable shut-in is a skill. Mariner has counted his toes, his nose, his hose and his clothes. He would count the blades of grass but they have six inches of snow on them. Mariner even has cleaned his study, discovering long lost papers, photographs and memorabilia from childhood.

Sad to say, television is inadequate as a source of entertainment. Mariner is certain DISH is charging too much for reruns, reruns of reruns, product shows and B-grade new stuff when something new occurs. Donald is not allowed on Mariner’s TV. He has turned to Netflix, primarily watching hobby shows and game shows – which have run their course. One must exclude PBS from the rest; shows like Nova and Frontline often have excellent content.

Being shut in without even one arcane sports event should be the subject of a lawsuit. There is one Spanish language station that shows soccer twenty-four hours a day. ¡Ay caramba! It is a form of torture after ten hours.

The world experience today is in such disarray that mariner finds himself being redundant in his subject matter and often deriding his mortal enemy, the electorate. He grows tired of spitting into an indifferent ocean. This circumstance, along with same-ol same-ol news leaves little to say.

Mariner, in a problem solving session with his alter egos, has decided to write a book as a curative to being pissed off at the world. He still will write posts that may be a bit more prospective and hopefully insightful. When one writes a book, one is always right.

It doesn’t matter if it’s never finished or ever published. It’s a better pastime than counting toes.

Ancient Mariner

 

Alas, Poor Uncle Sam

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. . . I knew him, Horacio — a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs?

– – – –

Mariner has become frayed and disillusioned wandering the foxholes and ditches of daily politics, economics and social conflict. It reminds him of those old news videos of doughboys running in the trenches of World War I. Mariner searches desperately for reason, cohesiveness and purpose.

Alas, the trenches of Somme are the nation’s reality. Cash replaces tear gas; international trade replaces cannon fodder; political dialogue replaces machine guns; technology replaces bombs and strafing. And now an accelerant, Covid-19, has introduced the urgency of a raging forest fire.

Not only is shelter-in-place an urgent pragmatism, it is a metaphor for our times; it is our trench.

Meanwhile, out on the battlefield, Covid-19 has expedited cultural change. It has made space for artificial intelligence to rush in and set new standards. It has disrupted political change from an incompetent form of democracy to one that relates to the battlefield. It has destroyed the nation’s economy.

More than a million soldiers were killed or wounded on the fields of Somme representing seven nations. It was brutally personal. Currently in the United States 23,000 citizens have died and the plague is still progressing. It is brutally personal.

Subtly, a new force has joined the war: global warming. As today’s global war of change fights its way into the future, as small steps of stability are put in place, global warming will attack across all fronts – politics, economics and society. Global warming will introduce a new dimension of destruction just as the atomic bomb did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the United States today, political smoke fills the air, explosions erupt in the halls of government and reason dies under attack from greed, prejudice and moral decline. Yet, no different than the Battle of Somme, this time of great, historical change must continue to be fought. It is not nation against nation so much as it is faction against faction. It is the wealthy against the poor, the average, the good of all; it is the plutocracy of government fatally infected with cash and privilege; it is corporate America flushed with opportunity to monopolize society; it is data technology that will erase the idiosyncrasy of each citizen while all around this war the biosphere dies more rapidly every day.

Will reason, cohesiveness and purpose ever again exist? Will humanity survive? Is all this commotion part of the Sixth Extinction?

Ancient Mariner

 

Business and cultural survival

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Mariner has highlighted a broad concern about the virus spinoff of big data corporations to use their endless clouds of tracking, identifying and profiling individuals to diminish privacy and security. Willingly, as ‘good fellows,’ they have offered their immense, person-identified databases to government agencies to help track the virus. Many editors and journalists have said, in so many words, ‘we will never get this snake back in the bag.’

This same phenomenon applies to the economy. Private equity firms, corporations, banks and investment firms will benefit from government handouts because the emergency legislation has profit loopholes in its wording. The Economist Magazine made this issue their lead story in this week’s addition. Mariner quotes the relevant section below:

“Don’t go from crisis to stasis

The last long-term shift is less certain and more unwelcome: a further rise in corporate concentration and cronyism, as government cash floods the private sector and big firms grow even more dominant. Already, two-thirds of American industries have become more concentrated since the 1990s, sapping the economy’s vitality. Now some powerful bosses are heralding a new era of co-operation between politicians and big businesses—especially those on the ever-expanding list of firms that are considered “strategic”. Voters, consumers and investors should fight this idea since it will mean more graft, less competition and slower economic growth. Like all crises the covid-19 calamity will pass and in time a fresh wave of business energy will be unleashed. Far better if this is not muffled by permanently supersized government and a new oligarchy of well-connected firms.”

Referencing mariner’s last post, corporatism is a form of authoritarianism.

Ancient Mariner

Welcome to the underbelly

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Speaking quite generally but based on intrinsic differences, a direction of cash flow can be determined for each economic philosophy. In times of duress, for example Covid-19, the Great Depression and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the direction of cash flow is clearly visible.

Capitalism. The cash flow is always upward toward the core wealth of the economy. If suddenly cash flow ceases, it will not deter the upward flow – it simply will slow down. The end result is those at the bottom have little if any cash because what’s left of the flow is always toward the core wealth of the economy. In other words, if a citizen has no means to generate cash, that person is dispensable; nothing is owed to them.

Socialism. The cash flow is circular. The core wealth of the economy is always in flux. The end result is that no one can truly tilt the flow toward them so they can be unendingly wealthy. On the other hand, the extraordinary political power that can emerge from the inordinately wealthy is not available in a socialist economy. As well, no citizen is limited in his worth because he does not contribute to the flow of cash.

Communism. The cash flow is similar to the ocean tide. It moves in and out according to the overall moment in history. Ebb and flow is not a good way to run an economy; it is difficult to generate economic flow to purposefully produce economic leverage. Everyone suffers the moment together – good or bad. A common repair is to move toward authoritarianism. Note China in the last century.

Authoritarianism. This includes any form of dictatorship, monarchy or its clubby version, plutocracy of which corporatism is a subset. Cash flow is not toward the core wealth as it is in capitalism; it is an extraction of wealth from the economy altogether. Eventually, there is not enough cash flow across the economy as a whole and national bankruptcy ensues. Note the state of oil-rich Venezuela.

The way to test which direction cash flows is to introduce a great calamity, for example, a worldwide pandemic. In the US, public sources of cash flow have stopped. No rent, no restaurant, no transportation, no mortgage, no factories, etc. The reader should note that the relative impact between holders of labor income and those holding the core wealth is not a similar experience. Hence, cash flow moves upward. The US must be a capitalist nation.

Ancient Mariner