Category Archives: Culture

Possible tools for HORSE #3

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It is interesting to notice how this horse race has an all or nothing air to it. HORSE #1 has democracy at stake. Intensely focused social and political resources must be expended, to borrow an abused phrase, to make America great again.
HORSE #2 has economic survivability at stake. As the 21st century moves forward, civilization will become more extreme in its relationship between have and have-not nations. Already 793 million humans are starving to the point of death, severe malnutrition and stunted bodies. Already out of 43,000 multi-national corporations, 40% of the wealth rests in the hands of only 147 of those corporations.
Human society has hidden much of its economic imbalance by over indulging in the consumption of Earth’s resources – fossil fuel, over-fishing the oceans, destroying forests to plant crops, leveraging limited elements on the Periodic Table, etc. The resources have become scant enough to threaten national stability around the world. HORSE #2 has the difficult task of redistributing wealth in an oligarchic, grow or die world.
Taking a look now at HORSE #3, the planet has no judgment with which to modify or improve its condition. The planet, from an unusual perspective, is just another orphan in the Milky Way not allowed opinion or input into how the orphanage is run.
What tools might humanity use to counter such huge, automatic, astronomic rules?
Probably the most important tool is to realize that humans live in the same orphanage. (Suddenly, a new metaphor emerges; mariner can’t help it!) In other words, planet Earth responds only with cause and effect options. Humans have given HORSE #3 Carbon Dioxide, which amounts to Furosemide (Lasix), also called “doping”, in horses. Now the Earth is running a lot faster than it usually does. So, not being too intellectual, humans should stop doping Planet Earth with Carbon Dioxide. But humans have a flaw: humans can make decisions without facts.
Today, it is the fossil fuel industry, the logging industry, the computer industry (computers are in the same class as automobiles when it comes to releasing CO2), the plastics industry, et al who make decisions about Carbon Dioxide. Asking these industries to stop releasing Carbon Dioxide is like asking the reader to stop urinating.
In this respect, all three horses are using the same equipment to win the race: Politics and money. Planet Earth, however, has an unmeasurably large bankroll with which to raise the stakes (another metaphor: poker).
To win or at least tie in this race, the US stable must expend unknowable amounts of money, must overcome the fleabites of prejudice and greed in society, and must acknowledge from the heart that they do not own or control the biosphere.
Ancient Mariner

HORSE #3 at the starting gate

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Mariner has leaned heavily on the horse race metaphor. It helps provide direction and simplifies objectives. The element that changes dramatically when HORSE #3 enters the race is the track itself. It has been easy to correlate the requirements for winning with HORSE #1 and #2 – they are owned by the same stable: The United States. The track is identical for both horses. HORSE#3, however, is owned by a different stable: Planet Earth. The track is unfamiliar to the US stable. Given today’s circumstances, to win the race the US stable must run on an unfamiliar track.

There are familiar attributes in HORSE #3. All three horses are focused on consumption of resources; all are concerned about survival; all are concerned about the grand order of things. What distinguishes each horse is the manner in which each horse runs the race.

HORSE #1 runs by modifying legislation, shoring up cultural unity and establishing common purpose.

HORSE #2 runs by investing in financial partners who will comprise an international market/GDP liaison.

HORSE#3 runs by utilizing planetary resources such as atmospheric temperature, biosphere adaptation, weather patterns, tides, volcanoes, earthquakes and similar physical characteristics. (When evaluating HORSE #3, there is a tendency to push measurement to infinity, that is, one feels the urge to jump off the track and frolic in the infield. If one’s thoughts seem to require a consultation with Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein or Harry Emerson Fosdick, the scale is too grand.)

Perhaps not very scientific but the three-horse race is all about the fact that the US stable has been borrowing hay from the Planet Earth stable and not ever paying for it. The cost to run this three-horse race is very, very high; without a good racing strategy, the US stable (and other national stables) could go bankrupt.

Addressing the issues more directly, humans have been releasing carbon dioxide in volumes so huge that they have interrupted the naturally very slow Carbon cycle typical of the Earth’s planetary behavior. Spiking the planet with Carbon Dioxide is like giving someone methamphetamine. Consequently, glaciers are melting, oceans are rising, air is heating, weather is changing dramatically and earthquakes are more active.[1]

֎ The planet is so energized that in the US alone 162 million people — nearly 1 in 2 — will most likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water. 1 in 12 Americans in the Southern half of the country will move toward California, the Mountain West or the Northwest over the next 45 years because of climate influences alone.

֎ Eight of the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas — Miami, New York and Boston among them — will be profoundly altered, indirectly affecting some 50 million people.

֎ Ten fastest-sinking coastal cities (2015 to 2020)
Tianjin, China 5.22 cm per year
Semarang, Indonesia 3.96
Jakarta, Indonesia 3.44
Shanghai, China 2.94
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 2.81
Hanoi, Vietnam 2.44
Chittagong, Bangladesh 2.35
Kobe, Japan 2.26
Kerala, India 1.96
Houston, USA 1.95

 

To translate the impact into dollars, the cost of repairing damage from hurricanes, floods, fires and drought in the US has risen. Climate change has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $350 billion over the past decade, according to a report released last year from nonpartisan federal watchdog the Government Accountability Office. By 2050, that figure will be $35 billion per year. Costs include clean up and disaster assistance caused by flooding and storms, which are set to increase under rising temperatures. Not taken into account are the shifts in climate which will severely impact agricultural production.

So entry fees for this three-horse race are exorbitant. They are large enough for every nation on the planet to be forced to reassess budgets. What comes first, war or flooding? What is more important, plutocracy or feeding citizens? What’s more important, space budgets or rebuilding New York City and Miami?

Finally, given the objectives of all three horses, will the US stable win anything?

Ancient Mariner

[1] If the reader wants to have a deeper understanding of the Carbon cycle, check out https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle

Possible tools for HORSE #2

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There is precedent for a tool designed to develop the integrated marketing schemes that will emerge in the near future:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a proposed trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. Participants signed the agreement on February 4, 2016.

As written, the TPP had serious flaws that left human rights issues at risk. Congress was not willing to sign the agreement as it stood; renegotiation would be necessary. After taking office, newly elected President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in January, 2017.

The remaining nations signed a reworked agreement called ‘Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (CPA) that went into effect in December, 2018. The eleven signatories have combined economies representing 13.4 percent of Global Domestic Product (GDP).

The issue at hand is the cost and political transition of such agreements. Every member nation must adjust government budgets, labor laws and have a member nation who can underwrite the cost of setting up productivity, legislation and buying off resistance. Without the US, the CPA moves slowly and cannot make competitive changes to the world market. Hence the importance of China, India and the US as anchors for these large international markets.

Using South America as an example, several dictatorships with failing economies must be rescued; several failed nations in Central America, the Gulf and Caribbean (including Cuba) must be propped up with renewed, functioning cultures and economies. This strategy cannot begin until HORSE #1 creates a more caring attitude toward South America and Hispanics in general. Today Congress and the President would rather spend billions on a failed and eternal immigration issue rather than go to the source nations and make them economic partners, thereby eliminating the cause of excessive immigration in the first place. China has a head start –

The race is on.

Ancient Mariner

HORSE #2 at the starting gate

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When HORSE #2 is examined, one discovers that the three horses have more in common than expected and may, in fact, be traced back to the same genetic source. HORSE #1 is about democracy and HORSE #2 is about economics; both are about capitalism. Both are about the democratic ethics of a unified and principled nation leading the world in fair and equitable market management.

At the starting gate, a great deal can be identified about track conditions. China, with its Belt and Road economic strategy, is focused on smaller neighbors along the Pacific Rim and a large swath of Eurasia including several ‘stan’ nations. A sea version loops around India into the Indian Ocean and to the east coast of Africa – 60 nations in all.

India, troubled at the moment by conflicts similar to those in the US, eventually may get it together, displace China’s sea strategy and may even dominate the Middle East economy.

Europe and China are investing heavily in African commerce.

This leaves South America, Pacific alliances including Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico and Japan and presumably a greatly enhanced presence in South America as fertile economic ground to be developed by the US.

Coming out of the gate, HORSES #1 and #2 require a common unity of purpose. Winning the race requires compassionate assistance to potential nations; winning requires wise and significant investment in the economics of potential nations; winning requires an air of successful cooperation with fellow partners.

Does current prejudice against Hispanic people and governments help? Does pulling manufacturing back onto US soil help? Does prejudice against Asian nationals help? Does the frozen, nontaxable wealth of the oligarchs help? Frankly, if HORSE #2 has any chance of winning, it will be because HORSE #1 got wise and developed a unified and principled nation.

Mariner calls the big three nations the ‘Sumo League’. Each nation had better come to the tournament healthy, well endowed, and have its internal affairs in order.

Ancient Mariner

Possible tools for HORSE #1

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[The reader may recall that mariner has decided not to bother with the ongoing drama and iterative accounting of every day, commercially sponsored, viewer-rating-hungry news. Instead he has chosen three critically important issues to review: 1, will democracy survive; 2, will the United States remain a world power in a new global economy; 3, what is the impact of global warming.

As is his wont, mariner has packaged the three issues in a metaphor as a three-horse race. Each horse receives a definition, current circumstances and possible impact on life in the US and around the world. To date, mariner has defined the three-horse metaphor and described the current circumstances of HORSE #1: Will democracy survive?

In this post, mariner looks at possible tools and modifications that may sustain democracy, that is, lead to a win for HORSE #1.]

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Possible tools for HORSE #1

Mariner cited several social examples that showed it is not the high-standards of ethics and policy in the Constitution that steer the nation. In fact, dozens of local, unabashed selfish cultural standards control the US political world, ignoring both original and modified language in the Constitution.

Over time, Atlantic Magazine has focused on this issue from different directions. One very dramatic idea that may bring behavior of the US more in line with the spirit of the Constitution is to redefine the term ‘Republic’ in the phrase, “The United States is a democratic Federal Republic”. Today, the term ‘republic’ alludes to the independently and publicly ruled states that comprise the United States. Could there be regional ‘states’ that more closely represent the regional cultures that today ignore the Constitution?

֎ Mariner observes that the Indigenous Indian treaties set a precedent for this concept. Would it be better if Dixie had a treaty relationship with the US Constitution that would allow the region to manage its own culture? A good example already underway is abortion, clearly a different ethic depending on the region of the nation.

Regional history for the US is extremely different for different areas. For example, the racist south is steeped in slavery and defensive eras where Indians and Hispanic immigration were perceived as threats. Then there’s the cowboy west, based on cattle economy and scant law enforcement which still is reflected today (Change cattle to oil and one can understand the risk faced by Wyoming Representative Liz Chaney).

Certainly the West Coast has its own idiosyncrasies, much more liberal than the cowboy mountains. How about the plains which even today have a staid agricultural economy with a no frills culture? And of course the ancient Northeast with New York; big business is the standard and money talks.

֎ Another republic model to consider is the European Union. The historical difference is that nations in the EU already existed as independent nations and already ruled their own culture. The new piece was a common money system – the Euro. There have been issues as member nations have suffered economic ups and downs which stretch the financial dependencies between the members. Today, England is considering dropping out of the common euro because of an imbalance in costs and trade agreements. Germany as well complains about supporting the EU more than other members.

An interesting conjecture for the future if the US adopts the EU model: California alone has a GDP rank close to England’s. What if California became disgruntled and decided to leave the US economy and be its own independent country? Further, would the US regions, which differ mightily when it comes to GDP, have the same conflicts the EU has balancing economies? Roughly speaking, the Confederate states lag behind the Union states with 22 percent less GDP.

A political conflict is emerging as several eastern members, the largest is Turkey, are eroding the democracy requirement to be an EU member and introducing autocratic rule. Mariner definitely sees that happening among the red states in the US.

So mariner leaves the regional solution in the hands of the readers for further contemplation. Would allowing regional cultural management, that is, mini-constitutions, save the United States? Anti-abortionists and the Republican Party think so – even to overturning US Constitutional election language and eliminating open election of representatives to the Electoral College.

Next: HORSE #2 at the starting Gate

Ancient Mariner

HORSE #1 at the starting gate

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A clip from an AP article about HORSE #1

“We say ‘All men are created equal’ but does that mean we need to make everyone entirely equal at all times, or does it mean everyone gets a fair shot?” says Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, which promotes expanded voting rights, public financing of political campaigns and other progressive causes. “Individualism is baked into that phrase, but also a broader, more egalitarian vision. There’s a lot there.”

This quote is an example of “Multiple Personality Syndrome (MPS)” in the Constitution (actually in this case, from the Declaration of Independence). Consider the following from the Constitution:

Everyone can say what they feel needs to be said.

However, everyone can carry weapons.

Further, religious social behavior is above reproach.

“Slavery’ was ended by the 13th Amendment. So what about indigenous and racial rights??? Never mentioned in terms either of equal or fair chance doctrine. What happened to “40 acres and a mule”? Black farmers were run off their farm, that’s what. In 1921 the ‘Black Wall Street’ community in Tulsa was burned to the ground for being successful. Does the Constitution even work?

Only men are created equal. Not until 1920 were women recognized as citizens ‘with all the rights . . .’

The 4th amendment protects individuals from search and seizure of personal information and possessions without due judicial process. Has anyone told Big Data about the 4th Amendment?

Finally, in the 14th Amendment agreed to in 1868, the Constitution guarantees “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Mariner has raised rabble about the Constitution to show that it is as political a beast as any legislation written today. Is it a real expectation for Congress to open the Constitution for an update every time the culture changes? If Congress could, it wouldn’t make any difference. Just ask any black, indian, woman, immigrant, multinational, poverty-stricken person, billionaire or venture capitalist.

The core question is what tools are available as a starting point to restore a ‘unified and principled nation’? When one considers the hodge-podge of laws, regulations and political idiosyncrasies that meaninglessly guide our American Nation, where do we begin?

Is it even possible to politically mandate social attitudes about equality and having a truly fair shot? What is the tool?

Ancient Mariner

 

The Bigger Race

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You may have noticed a decline in the frequency of mariner’s posts. The truth is, his complaints, insights and speculations have become perpetually negative, repetitive and never have an opportunity to report progress.

Watching today’s borderless, endless dysfunction has way too many horses in the race, simultaneously using way too many tracks and is confusing because not all entrants are horses. So mariner has decided to keep track of a three-horse card on one track.

HORSE #1

Will the United States survive as one unified and principled nation? The nation stands at the same precipice it has in the past when it formed a constitution with multiple personality syndrome, as it fought over slavery, and as the nation drifts apart again over deep cultural differences between red and blue. The trophy is constitutional democracy.

HORSE #2

Will the United States be a strong world leader in economics and global communication such as to be one of the very few nations that will dominate the political and economic reality of a one-market world? The present state of human political life ignorantly is spinning into a near future of global starvation, greatly reduced farming capacity and collapsing natural resources. The trophy is international stability; how many nations will cease to exist or merge because of a permanently collapsed economy?

HORSE #3

Current odds make this horse the favorite: global warming AKA climate change. Will the planet, tired of the fickle and self-promoting behavior of Homo sapiens, cause so much damage at the level of continent behavior, weather, intense storms, tsunamis and flooding that Horses #1 and #2 will not be able to continue in their present political/economic relationships? The trophy is humanism.

Ancient Mariner

 

Ready, Aim . . .

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An article from The New Statesman, a British publication, has a different slant on the US obsessive gun dependency:

“US gun violence is not just a domestic political issue. The failure to take action is a gift to Chinese and Russian propagandists. Shortly after Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he delivered a major foreign policy speech setting out his vision for the United States’ place in the world. He vowed to rebuild the country’s alliances and restore its moral leadership after the tumult of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“America is back,” he declared, and he promised that the United States would “again lead not just by the example of our power but the power of our example”.

“Yet the power of that example has been repeatedly undermined by the failure of US political leaders to tackle the country’s domestic problems, including racial injustice and worsening gun violence. This plays into the hands of American adversaries like China, whose propaganda highlights the deaths of young children in American school shootings and the police killings of Black Americans to advance the Communist Party’s agenda and what it claims are the comparative advantages of its own political system.”

Mariner surmises that guns are to this disheveled nation as opiates are to a drug addict. How does one detoxify a gun addiction? As with all other virtuous ideals that have disappeared, it seems having a gun is more important than continuing to be the world’s moral leader and key advocate of democracy.

It isn’t just guns that tarnish our national image. A dysfunctional Congress and the attacks by red states on open elections also have been noted – especially by European sources.

If the United States loses its moral leadership advantage, it will lose the economic battle for economic supremacy in an emerging global economic system.

Mariner’s solution: When it comes time to vote and the candidate is running for reelection, give serious thought whether the candidate deserves another term; if the candidate is over 55, do not vote for that candidate; further, give precedence to women, nonwhites, and candidates not supported by a national PAC.

Detox is not a pleasant experience.

Ancient Mariner

Demise is becoming a possibility

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Another tragic mass murder of children. It is within reasonable odds that the reader and their children will be shot before winning any state lottery. Yet, like an internal cancer, guns and gun ownership have become an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, racial bias not just against blacks but against Chinese, Latino, immigrant and Middle Eastern races remains entrenched. Despite protest, like an internal cancer, racism has become an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, homosexual differences and sexual discrimination against women prevail. Like an internal cancer, they have become an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, the wealthy prey on more and more human lives, expanding the number of poverty-stricken families and forcing a drain on financial stability from governments, jobs, housing, and diverse productivity. Yet, like an internal cancer, trillions of American dollars continue to be hidden away and represent an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, giant corporations have cornered freedom of speech. Lack of privacy, free thought and lack of accountability to the public, like an internal cancer, have become an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, Federal and state governments have turned against democratic voting and pursue a totalitarian plutocracy. Like an internal cancer, self-interested governments have become an irresponsible characteristic of American society.

Similarly, the advocacy of religious institutions for the equal well-being of every individual has vanished and has been replaced with vile accusations, prejudice and endorsement of violence. Like an internal cancer, the spiritual base has become an irresponsible characteristic of American Society.

Some may scoff and recount the many counter-movements that fight these cancers. But the movements lose. The cancers abide within the core of the nation’s ethos.

Mariner is reminded of an old orange that has lost the shine of its rind. Soft shades of green begin to appear over the orange – then grey mold and sunken flesh appear. The orange approaches demise. There is no hope for this deliberately bred seedless orange.

Ancient Mariner

An unusual find

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Mariner often shares his father’s penchant for chopping human behavior into little pieces with simplistic names like ‘who people, what people and how people’ and of course the ultimate Myers-Briggs test – all grouped under the term ‘pop psychology’.

Whenever mariner uses these terms he warns that none of us are pure examples of any pop phrase and therefore do not be too judgmental nor, as many Myers-Briggs folks do, brag about one’s uniqueness. The best example in a long time that proves pop psychology terms may be a bit tongue in cheek and that culture may influence our identity more than we know is the contractor who just today re-shingled mariner’s garage roof.

He and his team of three stripped the roof in one long hot day and finished the job the next day by Noon. They did an excellent job! The team was comprised of lifelong laborers accustomed to working all day at notable speed; they were heavily tattooed and in physically toughened shape. From a distance of ten feet, the business owner-contractor also looked toughened and tattooed.

As the job neared completion, mariner and the contractor had a chance to talk. The contractor was proud of his family heritage when it came to being accountable for a sound work ethic. His grandparents had a farm where the entire family worked long days; his father, a laborer, preached responsibility and hard work to the contractor and he in turn has made sure that his two sons regularly do physical work.

His conversation, however, told a different story. The contractor was erudite, showed interest in abstract issues, listened to podcasts, watched only selected news specials rather than daily news, understood the role of labor from an external perspective and otherwise demonstrated a mind that was interested in intellectual subjects. Yet he was a laborer by choice and belief and looked every bit a laborer. Mariner had to like him; he blames smartphones for the failure of work ethic in our society. He commented, “I can’t find any young help; two hours on the job and they quit!”

The insight mariner took from his conversation with the contractor, besides the unusual mix of a physical work ethic and an intellectual mind, was that everyone during their youth is shaped more by their culture/family than they may think. The contractor is in his mid-thirties; two generations before him were disciplined laborers; while financially stable, his family never had incomes that would suggest college and further could not allow time for college because there was work to be done. It is obvious in conversation with him that another profession is of no interest.

Mariner doubts the reader will run into the contractor in the metaverse.

By far the most important revelation that mariner took from his visit with the roofing crew is how important Labor is to a mature, sound and successful American society. Since the Reaganites dropped required underwriting of full retirement by manufacturing corporations, since the passing of the Great Society politicians (Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole, et al), since the continued disrespect by the electorate (mostly college snots) as one respectful element after another was cast aside – especially unions – Labor has suffered a forty-year history of disengagement from societal respect.

In fact, a laborer is as critical as a college professor. One is not better than the other. In fact, a laborer could no more handle the life of a college professor than a professor could handle the life of a laborer – let’s have some mutual respect here!

It is a familiar lesson. Every human being is a homo sapiens in good standing. Each is living, breathing, experiencing and surviving reality. No matter how different we may seem – each of us is the same, even identical in the larger measure of existence.

Ancient Mariner