Ever since the Illinois Governorship was bought effortlessly by five billionaires…Ever since the Koch brothers manipulated the 2016 campaign…Ever since Donald came on the scene…and looking back, ever since the 2008 recession was caused by banking and investment behavior unconstrained by national policy…Ever since East European black marketing and money laundering reflected amounts soaring into the hundreds of billions of dollars – using authoritarian or illegal support from nations in most cases…Ever since the financing of war and conflagration receives half of its financial support outside the legal corridors of legitimate international budgeting, mariner has never had a clear picture of what the tides of power represent. One thing is certain: This is not your father’s cold war.

IT was Donald who made things confusing. A friend of the mariner’s suggested that Donald may have a serious affliction with Barack. Clearly racist, harassed by the Government because of Donald’s netherworld businesses, taking a skillful beating from Barack at the National Press Club dinner, unable to win clearly with tactical lying techniques, and unable to use bribery, in his own mind Donald was having trouble ‘winning’ against Barack.

Uninvestigated by the press during the campaign (intelligence agencies without doubt have had Donald in their sights for some time because of his relationships with others outside the US – particularly Russia and ex-Soviet countries where oligarchy holds national power), we saw nothing but buffoonery. Donald wasn’t good at this. How had he made it to the final round? And then elected President? It’s another rag to chew but the chief turtle and the vampire made certain that Congress brought the nation to a standstill for eight years. Perhaps this state of affairs would have allowed Bill the Cat to be President!

So Donald – for whatever reason – switched from big time mobbery to governing nations. He didn’t fit but he did bring attention to the fact that there wasn’t one but two political movements above control by national governments: corporations and oligarchy. Each had compatible ethical structures and the wealth to play together.

This is where the mariner has an incomplete picture. Governments are losing a grip on the shape of mankind’s future. A few hundred years ago, Kings, Dukes, Sheiks, and Far East warlords fought battles over the riches of the time. Sometimes there was even an overlay of ethos and morality. In today’s competitions, the entire planet is the battlefield and all living things that reside on this planet are fuel.

It’s no longer spears or gunpowder or nuclear weapons, it is wealth. How does one inculcate a dollar bill with ethos, divinity, morality, or even evaluate the true value of a pleasant “Good Morning.”

Ancient Mariner